


The Art of Being a Con: A Guide by the Ant and the Wasp

by hypochondriacandatrashmouth



Series: scotthope/langdyne [9]
Category: Ant-Man - Fandom, Avengers, MCU
Genre: Alcohol, Arrest, Burglary, Con Artists, Con-Artist - AU, Costumes, Court, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - Freeform, F/M, Heists, Jail, Lots of Arguing, On the run from the law, Prison, References to Sex, Teams, The hustle, Thievery, couples, court trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 37,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22440832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypochondriacandatrashmouth/pseuds/hypochondriacandatrashmouth
Summary: They’re unstoppable. You never know when they’ll strike. You won’t even see them coming. Masters of disguise and draining your bank accounts. This is why your parents tell you not to talk to strangers on the internet and to look out for signs.They’re the Ant and the Wasp.
Relationships: Scott Lang/Hope Van Dyne
Series: scotthope/langdyne [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559116
Comments: 72
Kudos: 32





	1. Burch

She flashed a convincing sickeningly sweet smile toward the man sitting across from her from over her champagne glass. 

“Susan,” the man said in a gentle tone, Southern accent thick. “You certainly were beautiful in your profile picture, but you’re even more beautiful in person.”

The woman feigned a giggle and then suddenly stopped and looked at her phone as though she had gotten a text. “Oh…” she gasped, making her lip quiver.

“Susan? What’s wrong?” the man reached a hand across the table and gently touched her arm.

“It’s my brother,” she replied, using a fake Southern accent.

“You said his name was what again?” 

“Timothy.”

“Timmy, right.”

The woman pretended to scroll through her phone a moment longer. “Oh thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “He’s okay, but his car didn’t make it unscathed. He’s my ride home and I have no money with me except to pay for my half of the dinner.”

“He was in an accident?” the man asked. 

“Seems like it,” the woman nodded and typed something on the phone. Then she sighed. “He said his cards are all maxed out. He can’t get it fixed.”

“If y’all need money, I’d gladly help. I’ll even cover dinner. How much does he need?”

“Let me ask him.” She typed a little more, and pulled up a picture of a totalled vehicle. “He says he needs three thousand.”

The man choked on his drink. “Three thousand? For a damaged vehicle?”

“Oh gosh, it’s terrible!” She turned the phone around and showed him the picture. “Look at it! My poor brother… That car is his _baby…_ ”

“You know what? How does five grand sound? It should cover everything and be a little extra for y’all’s troubles.”

“Oh Sonny,” the woman cooed. “Thank you so much!” 

The man smiled at her and brushed a stray blonde hair from her eyes. “Oh I’ll do anything!” he said. “Now, do you want me to send it to you over PayPal? Or should I write a check?”

“PayPal would be best,” she replied and took his phone to input needed information. She took a moment to memorise the man’s own information. She passed the phone over and smiled gratefully. “You’re too kind.”

“Well you’re in need, I can’t _not_ help.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna go call Tim and let him know what’s goin’ on,” she said and stood. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Take as long as you need.”

“Again, thank you.”

She blonde stood and hurried in the direction of the back of the restaurant, near the bathrooms and kitchens. She dialled a number and listened as it rang. On the second ring, a voice came through.

_“Did you get it?”_

“Yeah, dummy. Did the cash come through?” The accent was gone and she spoke in a whisper.

_“Just a moment, m’dear. The page is loading up.”_

“Well make it quick. And where are you? The GPS says you’re three blocks away. I can’t walk that far before he finds out we drained his account.”

_“I’m on my way. It’s difficult to drive and steal at the same time. You’re better equipped for multitasking than I am.”_

“Shut up!”

_“And why don’t you use this commanding tone in the bedroom? I’ll do_ anything _for you to be dom again.”_

“Empty Burch’s account, then we’ll see.”

_“Yes, ma’am. What’s the information?”_

She gave him the account info she had memorised. Then there were a few moments of silence, save for the tapping of keys from the other end of the line. 

_“Okay, it’s empty. Get out of there! I’m out back.”_

And in a flash, the woman was gone.

Sonny looked in the direction she had gone and frowned. Maybe she had just gone to the bathroom?

He would have thought that if his phone hadn’t buzzed just that second with a notification from his bank, alerting him that his account was empty. 

“What?” 

Then he got a text from the dating app he had met Susan on: 

_Susan: Thanks for the date! And the money. My boyfriend says hi, by the way.🐝_

Sonny smacked the table and cursed aloud. He had been conned!

***

The woman jumped from the bathroom window and leaned against the brick as she surveyed the area. She saw her boyfriend’s van and ran to it, her heels clicking against the pavement. The door flew open and she jumped into the passenger seat, whipping the blonde wig from her head and her dark ponytail fell down her back. 

“So? Did you think about it?” the man in the driver’s seat asked with a grin.

“Did you get the money?” the woman countered.

“Duh. The dude was _loaded_! He should be getting a message from his bank right about…”

The southern man and three employees from the restaurant came running out. 

“Go! Go go _go_!” the woman yelled and the man slammed on the gas and the van tore out from behind the building, just passing the group of four.

The woman gripped onto the handle on the roof of the vehicle and laughed, eyes crinkling at the sides.

Once they were out in traffic, the man driving slowed and stopped at a red light. He looked over at the woman and grinned. “You’re amazing,” he sighed.

“ _You_ are amazing as well,” she replied, and tapped the tip of his nose with a pink polished finger. Yup, a couple; not siblings. That’d be gross.

“You’re beautiful,” the man went on, taking her hand into his own. “Can you imagine how _different_ life would be if we hadn’t been trying to rob each other?”

“Way too different,” the woman agreed. “I love working with you! You’re the best partner!” 

Both cons leaned over the centre console and kissed deeply, only to be pulled out of it by the line of vehicles behind them to start blaring their horns.

The van was put back in gear and the two headed off to trade it out for a new vehicle, so they wouldn’t be caught. After that, they headed to a hotel.

After getting a top floor suite (under new aliases) the couple headed up, barely able to keep their hands to themselves in the elevator ride up.

Actually, they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves at all. Before they knew it, the man’s laptop bag and the woman’s suitcase was on the floor and the man was pressed against the reflective mirror wall of the compartment, the two making out heatedly. Along with getting them riled up for a… _busy night_ , it also ensured they were left alone.

The elevator arrived on their floor and they pulled away from one another. They took up their bags and headed down the hall, the woman’s bright red lipstick smeared across both of their mouths. As she worked the keycard in the door to their suite, the man set to kissing and sucking on her neck and shoulder from behind her, his arms snaking around her waist. She got the door open and pulled him inside.

Soon enough, the woman’s red dress was on the floor in a heap beside the man’s clothes.

***

The couple was now laying on the bed, under the heavy white sheets. The woman traced shapes on the man’s bare chest as he held her close.

“So… How did he react when you asked for the money?” the man asked suddenly.

“He reacted as usual. He saw a woman in distress and couldn’t _not_ help.” She looked up at him. “He didn’t suspect a thing.”

“You’re an amazing actress.”

“Do you wanna take over tomorrow?” the woman asked, sitting up and facing him, the sheets falling from her naked body.

“You know I’m better at getting into the systems.” The man sat up, the cool air hitting his bare skin. “Besides, if you get caught, I’m the random pedestrian that points the cops in the wrong direction.”

“I’m willing to give you another chance at acting!” the woman pleaded. “I’m forgiving the Cross incident. Plus, I’m tired. I want a break from seducing people. We’re _both_ the skills in this game.”

He sighed. “You know I can’t argue with you. Fine, I’ll take over the role tomorrow. But can I please have another name other than Tim and Richard?”

“You get to choose tomorrow.” She leaned down over him with a smile and kissed him softly, but then he pulled away and held up a finger.

“One more question.”

She sighed. “Proceed.”

“Can we please cool it with the siblings con? It makes me feel gross.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Thank you!” He smiled happily up at her.

They settled back under the sheets, the woman tucked under the man’s arms.

“I love you, Hope van Dyne.”

She smiled, eyes closed, and kissed his chest. “I love you too, Scott Lang.”


	2. Bank of San Fransisco

Hope was awake before Scott. She had on one of his shirts and a pair of underwear. Her hair was damp, so she must have taken a shower at some point. She was laying back on the bed, typing away on the laptop. 

The man ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and sat up. “What’re you doing?” he mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and looking over at the screen. 

“I found our next hit,” the woman smiled and looked at him. 

“Oh my god,” Scott said. “Is that–”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Hope said, flicking his nose. “It’s an okay bank.”

“Why do you get to go on dates and I get a bank?” The man pouted and crosses his arms over his still-bare chest.

“Do I need to remind you of what happened with Cross?” the woman raised her eyebrows.

“Please no,” the man whined. “That was literally hell and I never want to deal with that again.”

“We almost got caught, Scott!” Hope exclaimed. “That’s why we agreed you don’t do dates again!”

“Fine. I’ll stick to banks.”

Hope set the laptop at the foot of the bed and leaned into Scott’s side. “ _ Technically _ ,” she said in a gentle tone, “banks have more money than bank  _ accounts _ .”

“Yeah…” Scott said slowly, then realised what she was saying. “I make us more money!” 

“That’s right!” she grinned. “You’re job is more important than mine!”

“What’s my disguise?” he asked.

“Depends,” the woman sighed and pulled two different shirts out from her suitcase. “You wanna be Grant or Antony?”

***

“You ready for this,  _ Antony Walters _ ?” Hope smirked at Scott, who was in the backseat adjusting his ginger wig. There was a fake Uber sticker on the windshield of the silver Ford Explorer.

“As I’ll ever be,” Scott replied and leaned forward and tapped his cheek. Hope rolled her eyes and leaned down and pressed a kiss it.

“Do you have your marker?” she asked suddenly as he reached for the handle of the door.

“On the drive.”

“Be careful.”

“I will be.”

The man stepped out of the car and sent a subtle signal to the woman in the driver’s seat. Then he played it off as if he were adjusting his jacket and made his way up the steps, adjusting the fake glasses on his face.

“ _ I’m getting into the system to add the fake account, _ ” Hope’s voice said in his ear—an almost invisible comm.

“Okay,” he muttered back. “Just make it quick. I dunno how long it’ll take and I don’t wanna be in there too long or it’ll get suspicious.”

“ _ No duh _ .”

“Love you,” he softly sang.

There was a sigh and Hope replied,  _ “Love you too.” _

Scott made his way into the bank and luckily they had come on a slow day—barely any customers. He made his way up to the unoccupied counter and gave the banker a look. 

“What can I help you with?” the man sitting at the desk asked. 

“Yeah ah… I need ta make a withdrawal,” Scott replied in a phoney accent.

_ “What the hell kind of accent is that?”  _ Hope asked, snorting.

Scott sucked his head slightly and hissed at her, “Shut up, I’m trying. Accents are your thing.”

“Sir?” the banker asked. Scott popped back up and smiled.

“Sah-ree. Mah shoe was untied.”

“I’ll need a name to accent the account to make the withdrawal, as well as some other information,” the banker replied simply.

“Antony Walters,” Scott said quickly, but not so quickly it was suspicious.

The banker asked for some more information and Hope fed the answers right into Scott’s ear.

“Alright,” the bank teller smiled up at Scott. “I’ll be right back with your money.”

The disguised man thanked him and once he was gone to the back, Scott peeked around and Hope spoke to him:

_ “I’ve hacked into the cameras. They’re just playing a loop of you standing there waiting. Put the drive in!” _

Scott did so quickly, inserting the drive into the port on the back of the monitor, and peeked over the counter just in time to see it blink a few times before returning to normal, except the cursor soared around the screen quickly and codes and passwords were typed in and transfers were made.

_ “Head back to the vault. You have your magic tool on you?” _ Hope asked.

“Yeah. I got it. I never leave without it!” Scott whispered back. He headed off in the direction of the vault, and was lucky that there was a “RESTROOM” sign pointing in the same direction.

He acted as though he were heading into the bathroom, peeked around the hall and saw nobody there, and then took off further down the way.

“ _ It’s on your left,” _ Hope said.

“Yeah, honey. I see the sign.”

_ “Just making sure. Get in there! There’s a panel out of the back of case 3000. Whatever can fit, put through there. I’ll be out back to gather it all and put it in the car. Please be quick. The teller is currently distracted but he won’t be for long and if you don’t get back there, they’ll either get suspicious or think you have a bladder problem.” _

“Of course, ma’am.” Scott rolled his eyes.

He picked the lock and got inside and started cracking into the safes, pulling gloves from his pocket so no fingerprints would be left behind. He did as Hope told him to, and then a panel from the ceiling came loose and she dropped down. 

“Hope!” the man hissed. “What’re you doing?”

“He’s coming back! You have to go! I’ll take care of these.”

“Please be careful,” the man pleaded. “If anyone comes, get back up there and go to the car. Please.”

“I promise,” she said, and pulled the gloves off his hands. “Now go, Scott.”

The man kissed her cheek then took off. Hope pulled the gloves on and set to work.

***

Scott returned to the desk. “Sorry,” he said to the teller, pulling the accent back out. “I had ta run to the restroom.”

“That’s- That’s perfectly fine. I have your withdrawal amount right here. I just need you to sign for it.” The man seated opposite Scott held out a form.

_ Hope, I sure hope you put in a phoney signature like what I’m writing right now. _

He signed using his wrong hand so it couldn’t be traced back to him and handed the form back over.

The banker handed over a hefty envelope with the cash in it and told Scott to have a good day. Scott thanked him, secretly removed the drive from the monitor, and headed out. 

Once outside, Scott looked around, trying to not be suspicious as always, and turned left, and headed around to the back of the bank. He saw the pile of goods building up and set to work on putting it all in the trunk of the vehicle.

***

The teller went to type something on his computer, but the screen was frozen. He frowned and clicked the mouse a few times and even pressed the power button. Nothing.

“What the hell?” he muttered. 

“What’s wrong, Griz?” the woman in the cubicle beside the man asked. 

“Come take a look at my screen,” he said. “It’s frozen and it won’t turn off.” The woman and a few others whom weren’t busy made their way over. A few started giving suggestions and advice, and Griz tried all of them. Nothing would turn off or restart the computer. Then the screen flickered like it had been dropped and a message appeared.

**“IT WAS A PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU. -🐜”**

“What- What the hell? What does that mean?”

“The news! Oh my god, we’ve been-” The man whom had been panicking behind Griz froze. “The vault. Someone go to the vault! We’ve been robbed!”

Multiple tellers ran off while one of the remaining picked up the phone and called the police.

***

Hope heard footsteps in the hall just outside and finished off the final safe and shut it. She pulled a cool move that got her up to the ceiling and through the missing panel. She put it back in place and headed back through the ceiling. She came through an empty office and landed silently on top of the desk and hopped off. She opened the window and climbed out. Scott was waiting for her by the car, just closing the trunk.

Hope slid across the hood and opened the driver’s door. “Get in! They’re onto us!” she called to her boyfriend. He got into the passenger seat and she took off, once around the front, she played Uber driver once again. Scott reached for her new phone, attached to a mount on the dash. 

“Can I pick a song—” He received a smack on the hand and a firm ‘No.’

***

The police arrived at the bank and started their investigation. 

“Officer,” Griz greeted one of the officers with a firm handshake. “The message left behind is on my monitor.”

“Let’s take a look at that,” Officer Paxton said, and followed Griz over to his cubicle. Paxton sat in the man’s chair and looked at the screen. The message and blinking edges were still displayed.

“Who did you tend to today?” the officer asked after a silent moment.

“Um… I can get you a list,” Griz replied. 

“Who was the last person you helped out?” 

“Oh, this really strange man. Antony Walters, I believe he said his name was?”

“Antony Walters?” one of Griz’s coworkers repeated. “We don’t have a member by that name.”

“Sure we do!” Griz shrugged. “I just helped him out. Redhead? He was in the system and everything.”

“Mmmm, no,” the woman shook her head. “I was helping a woman who was in the W’s. I scrolled down that whole list. No Antony Walters.”

“You’re serious?” Griz’s eyes went wide. “Oh no…”

“I need to see your security tapes,” Paxton said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated!


	3. The News Report

This time, they were in a motel. They paid for the room under the names Eleanor and Jason Goodwin. 

Once inside the room, Hope pulled the curtain closed on the window and double checked that the door was locked. Scott flopped down on the bed and waited for her to join him.

“So, Eleanor and Jason,” the man said suddenly. “Have you been watching the Good Place like I asked?”

“More like you  _ begged _ ,” Hope snorted, making her way over. “And, yeah. I have, when we’re not  _ busy _ .” She lay down beside him and slid a hand up his shirt, just to feel his skin.

The man smiled down at her and kissed the top of her head, then got the remote and turned the television on. It was already set to the news channel so the moment it came on, they saw what was being covered.

The headline read:  _ Ant and the Wasp Strike Again in Downtown San Francisco _ .

_ “Last night, a restaurant owner by the name of Sonny Burch was catfished by a woman going by the name Susan Benson,” the reporter was saying. “A police sketch artist asked the man to describe her to him, and he actually brought up a dating app profile picture the woman had used. He assured us she looked just as she did in the photograph when they met.” _

Two pictures appeared on the screen, a colourised police sketch of Hope with blonde hair and bright red lips and beside it was the profile picture they had taken weeks prior to the con.

Hope suddenly sat up and slid off the bed and walked toward the bathroom.

_ “He received a notification from his bank informing him that his account was completely empty. He had apparently given her five grand to help her fix up her brother’s car, only to find out there was no brother or totalled car that existed… But instead a boyfriend who was apparently Susan’s getaway driver.” _

Scott sat up and moved over to the bathroom and knocked on the door just as a screenshot of the message Hope had sent Sonny flashed onto the screen. “Honey? You okay in there?” Scott called through the door.

“Yeah. I’m fine. My head just hurts.”

_ “Now, earlier today one of the few downtown Banks of San Francisco was robbed of everything. Nothing was left behind, except _ this  _ message on one of the computers.” _

What came onto the screen this time was the message left behind on Griz’s monitor at the bank.

_ “Hey, Jessica,” _ one of the other new anchors said.  _ “Why is the Wasp called the Wasp when she uses a bee emoji?” _

“There’s no wasp emoji, dumbass,” Scott grumbled. He heard a giggle from inside the bathroom, and he smiled a little.

_ “I would have to guess because there’s no wasp emoji?” _ the first reporter—Jessica—replied, moving her black hair from her eyes.  _ “May I finish now? We just received photographs of the suspect from the bank swindle.” _

_ “Yes of course,” _ the other anchor nodded.

_ “Thank you, Luke,” _ Jessica smiled widely.  _ “Like I said, we just received a police sketch as well as a screenshot from security footage of the suspect from the bank. He went by the name Antony Walters.” _

“Looks like Susan and Antony are off the table, sweetheart,” Scott said, leaning back against the door and watched as a sketch of him in disguise flashed onto the screen beside a slightly-blurry security camera screenshot.

_ “Do you think they’re working together?”  _ Luke asked Jessica.

_ “I dunno,” _ Jessica admitted.  _ “Maybe? They’re swindles took place one right after the other and they’re moving around to the same areas. Remember last year with Darren Cross? While the Ant has been discovered, he also received a message from the Wasp. So I guess it would make sense for them to be working together.” _

Scott groaned at the mention of the failed heist. “Why won’t anyone just drop it?” he whined.

The door opened and Scott stumbles backward, only to be caught and steadied by Hope.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I knew he was going to be a difficult one, I shouldn’t have given you that job.”

He turned to her and cupped her face in his hands. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m just tired of everyone still bringing it up.”

“Do you want to set up the next one?” the woman asked, reaching up to touch his hand. 

“Only if you’ll kiss me,” the man replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

***

Paxton was in his home with his fiancée and her daughter after the investigation. He was seated at the dining room table, poring over case files and reports of past hits from the two con artists he was tracking down. Maggie’s (his fiancée) daughter was in the living room playing with her stuffed animals while the news played in the background. The anchors and reporters were talking about the recent swindles and robberies that had taken place. 

Paxton glanced up and rolled his eyes as they brought up last year’s biggest lead, a failed attempt that led to the Ant and the Wasp fleeing from New Jersey. 

The police sketches and photos found of of the cons appeared on the screen again.

The eight-year-old girl sitting in the room looked up and pointed at the man’s photographs on the screen. “That’s the man in mommy’s wallet!” she exclaimed. “His hair looks different and he doesn’t wear glasses.”

Paxton looked toward the hall where Maggie had gone. “What- What do you mean, sweetie?” he asked.

The girl stood and tapped the television screen where the pictures still remained. “Mommy has a picture of him.” she said.

“Oh…” He kept his eyes on the girl as he called down the hall. “Maggie? Can you come here, please?”

A few short moments later, the blonde woman emerged from the hallway. “What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“Mommy! The man in your picture!” her daughter exclaimed.

“Oh  _ god… _ ”

***

“Maggie, you need to tell me what you know,” Paxton said slowly. 

“Look, I’m so sorry. I didn’t–”

“Maggie.”

“Right, sorry.” The woman took a deep breath and started explaining. “We met almost nine years ago. He was such a sweet guy, Jim. He was! We talked for about three weeks before one thing led to another and… He just disappeared. I’d ended up pregnant with Cassie and…” She took a shaky breath. “He has no idea she exists. If he did, he surely would’ve stopped by at least once to meet her.”

“Maggie, I’m so sorry,” the officer said. “I need to know his name.”

“Paxton, what’s he done besides steal from people?” the blonde asked instead. 

“ _ Maggie _ ,” Paxton said sternly. “His  _ name _ .”

She sighed and folded her hands in her lap.  _ “Scott. Lang.” _


	4. Mr. Rogers

“Tell me about him,” Hope said, leaning forward. 

“His name is Steve Rogers,” Scott started. “He’s in the military unofficially. One of his best friends is actually a soldier. And his other best friend is a pilot.”

“I see,” the woman said. “And what exactly are you planning?”

“Okay, here’s what I was planning: 1) One of us pretends to be in need, 2) That’ll draw Steve Rogers’ attention and He’ll come over to try to help, 3) Whichever of us it is will pickpocket him and leave, 4) Get out of there as fast as possible. He’s fast so whoever is swindling him will have to try and lose him. There’s a display near the docks that’ll be easy to camouflage into. Then–”

“This says he’s located in New York, Scott,” Hope said. “We’re in San Francisco in case you’ve forgotten.”

“He’s visiting a friend here. I found his plane ticket online. I also tried to find a bank account but he doesn’t have one. He just does volunteer work and gets paid for that and keeps everything in cash so his wallet’s gonna be kinda hefty.”

“Oh. You’ve done your homework! I’m so proud of you.”

“Who’s gonna be the pedestrian and who’s gonna be on the run?” Scott asked, setting the laptop aside and moved to sit behind her on the bed, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her head.

“What does this display look like?” she asked. “I may have something that could work…”

***

Paxton entered the police station with Maggie right behind him, Cassie holding onto her mother’s hand tightly.

“Maggie, I’ll need you to go into the interrogation room while I find someone to watch Cassie. She’ll be fine,” Paxton said, and took Cassie’s hand as she let go of Maggie’s. Paxton opened the door to the room for Maggie and then led Cassie toward his colleagues’ desks. 

She was left with one of the women and Paxton headed back to the interrogation room after taking up a paper and pen.

“Maggie,” he said as he entered. “I just need you to write down what you told me at home.” He set the paper and pen down in front of her on the table.

She took up the pen and looked up at him. “What if we’re wrong, though?” she asked. “And you won’t be able to catch him. He’s impossible to find.”

“We’re going to try our best,” Paxton sat across from her. “Mags, he’s a criminal.”

The woman stopped writing and sighed, massaging her temple. “I know, I know. It’s just… hard to believe. He wasn’t like this when we knew each other.”

“You don’t know that, dear. He- You said he just disappeared before you found out you were pregnant.”

“I know.” She looked toward the door. “Cassie looks like him too. More like him than she looks like me.”

“I’m sorry,” Paxton whispered. 

“Who’s the woman they’re saying he may be working with? And why are they called Ant and Wasp?”

“We don’t know her real name,” Paxton explained. “But they leave behind messages after they con their victims. They sign them with either a bee or ant emoji or a sticker of a wasp or ant.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“I need you to finish writing this and sign it.”

“Right, right, right,” Maggie said quickly and started writing again. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You’re distracted,” Paxton said.

***

Scott pulled his jacket’s hood up over his head and glanced toward the black bauble display Hope was going to blend into. 

He pretended to scroll through his new phone and “take a call.”

Further up the docks, Hope stood in an empty cubbyhole in all-black attire and waited for Steve Rogers to arrive. As the blond man passed her by, she slid out of the shadowy area and acted as though she were a jogger and passed him up, then she pretended to trip over herself and fell down.

“Oh god,” Steve said and hurried over to help her up. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

Hope nodded as he heaved her up, slipping her hand into his pocket and pulled his wallet out. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “I um… I need to go,” she said quickly, backed away a few steps, flashed him his wallet, and bolted.

“Wha–” Steve felt his pockets. The wallet was gone. “Shit!” he shouted and took off after her. 

Hope for the money out of the wallet and tossed the object to Scott who stuffed it in his jacket pocket as Hope put the money in her bra and hurried to the display and blended in. 

Steve showed up and spoke with Scott. The man nodded and snuck the wallet back into the blond’s back pocket. 

“Which way did she go?” Steve asked.

Scott pointed in the opposite direction of the display. Steve thanked him and took off. Scott called after him.

“You said she took your wallet?” he called.

Steve stopped and turned around. “Yeah.”

“Then what’s that?” the hooded man asked, pointing to the blond’s butt. 

He took the wallet out of his pocket and frowned. He opened it and saw two stickers stuck to the photo slot: A wasp and an ant. He looked up and the man was gone. “Sir?” he called out. “Hello?” He looked around and spotted the hooded figure running away with the woman in black. “Fuck me…” he grumbled.

***

Paxton read over what Maggie has written, tapping the pen anxiously on the tabletop.

The door to the room burst open suddenly and one of his colleagues peeked in. “We’ve got a man here claiming he’s been robbed.”

“Okay,” Paxton said, and waved the paper. “I’m kinda in the middle of getting a statement right now.”

The other officer shook his head. “I think you should see what his robber left him.”

Paxton sat up straight, quickly. “Ant?”

The other nodded. “And Wasp.”

Maggie’s eyes widened and she looked at Paxton. “Don’t just sit there!” she said. “Go get ‘em!”

***

“Okay, so what happened?” Paxton asked Steve Rogers, getting ready to write down what the man said.

“I was out at the docks, just going for a walk,” the blond started, “when this woman jogged passed me and tripped. I went to help her up and—I hadn’t felt her do it. She stole my wallet! She showed me it before she ran off.”

“What did this woman look like?” Paxton asked. 

Steve gave him her description: Around 5’6”, dark hair, freckles, fair skin, dressed in all black.

“Was there a man with her?” Paxton asked.

Steve shook his head. “Not until later.”

“What do you mean?” Paxton leaned forward.

“Well, I ran after her after I registered what had just happened and she’s disappeared. I asked this man that was standing in line at a food truck if he had seen her. He pointed in one direction and I started that way.” 

Paxton nodded along as he wrote.

“He asked me for clarification on what she had stolen from me and I told him and he pointed to my pocket and it was back. I don’t know how!”

“I think I know what happened,” Paxton said. “Can I see the stickers?” 

Steve nodded and handed over his empty wallet. The police officer opened it and nodded quickly.

“What? What’s wrong? I don’t understand what they mean,” Steve said quickly, frantic.

“Have you heard of the Ant and the Wasp?” Paxton asked. The other man shook his head. “Okay, well, they’re two of the most notorious and untraceable con artists in San Francisco. They’d initially tried to con someone in New Jersey, but their cover was blown and they fled here. You can watch some news segments online about their heists.”

“Do you have any idea who they are?” the blond asked.

“We have suspicions on who the Ant is,” the cop replied.

“Who?”

“I’m afraid I cannot share that information until my superior officer says it’s okay,” Paxton replied in an apologetic tone. 

“Please. Please find them and put a stop to this!”

“We’re trying our best.”


	5. The Wombats

Hope was packing up the suitcase of disguises while Scott was sitting on the motel bed, typing away at the laptop.

“Hey, Hope?” he said.

The woman looked up. “Yeah?”

“What if we got partners?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if we expanded our team?”

“Why would we do that?” the woman asked, furrowing her eyebrows and dropping the shirt she had been holding.

“For one, it would make things easier for us,” the man replied. “We could have a distractor, someone to go on food runs, a hacker, and a getaway driver. That way we won’t have to run around like at the bank.”

“I… I dunno, Scott.” The woman wrung her hands nervously. “What if we don’t… It’s been just us for almost two years. We’ve managed!”

“But we’ll need help if we go any bigger. Eyes in the sky, wheels on the ground, distraction in position.”

“You’ve really thought about this, haven't you?” 

“Yeah.” The man looked down. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Hope frowned and moved over to the bed and sat beside him. “You realise they’ll expect us to pay them, right? And what if no one wants to work for two con artists?”

“We could play it off as something else,” he suggested.

“Like what?” She snuggled into his side.

“Travelling investors,” the man suggested with a shrug. “We can ask them by using the con artist thing as a cover trick question and if they actually agree with that, we can forget about the other thing.”

“You’re so smart,” Hope commented.

“Please compliment me more,” Scott begged. 

“Tell me who you’ve found first, then I might.”

“Okay!” Scott sat up quickly and showed her the laptop. “I’ve found three roommates: Luis, Kurt, and Dave. A diverse group of guys. They all have a record and are trying to find jobs.”

“I see,” Hope nodded and rested her chin on the man’s shoulder. “And how did you find them?”

“Craigslist…”

“Uh huh… And what else do you know?”

“Kurt has a masters degree in computer sciences,” the man started and pointed to a photo of a tattooed man with dark hair. “He moved to San Francisco from Russia back in his junior year of high school. He was arrested at the age of twenty-one for hacking into an electric road sign on a dare and making it read the lyrics to a very provocative song by CupcakKe.”

“Is that so?” she pointed to a photo of a black man wearing a beanie. “What about him?”

“That’s Dave. He was the first in his family to go to college but he dropped out after the first term because he didn’t like his major and couldn’t find a college that had the major he wanted that would take him,” Scott explained. “He was arrested at the ages of twelve, nineteen, and twenty-four for stealing cars and ensuing high-speed car chases with the cops.”

“Oh!” The woman seemed intrigued. “And I’m guessing that this is Luis?” She pointed to the final photo: A Latino man with a snapback cap.

“Right you are, my love!” Scott beamed at her.

“It says here,” Hope said, taking the laptop and scrolling down a little on the page and highlighting a phrase, “that he was arrested for stealing a smoothie machine.”

“Two smoothie machines, actually.”

She gave him a look.

“Sorry,” the man said. “But he wants to be a chef and likes telling stories! He’s perfect!”

“You really want this?”

“Yeah. It’ll make things easier and we can pay them two hundred each per heist.”

“Mmm… This is coming from a con artist but that sounds a little stingy.”

“You’re right. A grand each,” Scott corrected.

“Now you’re being generous.”

“Eight hundred?”

“There we go.”

Scott took the laptop back. “Let’s message ‘em and offer the job!”

***

Luis was in the middle of making a batch of waffles when his roommate Dave ran in with his phone. Luis dropped with fork in worry.

“What’s wrong? Where’s the fire?” he asked frantically.

Dave shook his head quickly. “No. No fire. None that I know of, anyway.”

“Then what’s wrong,  _ hombre _ ?”

“I got an email,” the other man explained. “Apparently Kurt got one from the same folks.”

“About…?”

“They want to hire us. Check your messages! They said they emailed you, too!”

“Seem sketchy.” The Russian man had entered the room. 

“I dunno man,” Dave shrugged. “They actually seem legit.”

“Who are they?” Luis asked, taking out his phone and opening the Mail app.

“You watch the news, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Look at the signature.”

_ “....  _

_ Sincerely, 🐜 and 🐝” _

“ _ Oh Dios mío,” _ Luis muttered. “The Ant and the Wasp wanna hire us?”

“It seems so,” Kurt admitted. “They attach a document with our records and Craigslist profile.”

“They certainly did their research,” Luis said.

“Should we email them back?” Dave asked.

Luis held up a hand. “We  _ should _ ,” he said. “But don’t accept the offer. Ask how much cash they have and what they’ll pay us.”

***

Maggie sat in her and Paxton’s bedroom, staring at her phone. There was a number on the screen she hadn’t called in years. Her thumb hovered over the “Call” icon; she was unsure if she could press it or not. 

She had been debating calling the man the number belonged to for a few days now. She decided he deserved to know about his daughter… But something about the fact he was a con artist and criminal kept bugging her. He hadn’t always been like this, she knew. 

She sighed and cancelled the call and tossed the phone aside. She wasn’t going to call him just yet.

***

“Eight hundred dollars  _ each _ ?” Dave exclaimed. 

“We  _ have _ to accept offer!” Kurt said.

“They didn’t answer the first question,” Luis pointed out. 

“They must be loaded if they’re able to pay us each eight hundred,” Dave noted.

“ _ Maldicíon _ ,” Luis swore. “You’re right. We have to accept.”

“We can ask to set up meeting to see if legit,” Kurt suggested. The other two men muttered their agreement and started typing.

***

“They want to meet up,” Scott said. “What do I say?”

“They’ll be seeing us face-to-face anyway,” Hope pointed out. “So set it up.”

Scott typed and a few minutes later he looked at her. “They wanna know where. I don’t know anywhere where we won’t be overheard.”

Hope thought for a moment, then looked up. “I have an idea.”


	6. New Recruits

“You swear you’re okay with this?” the male con asked. 

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s my childhood home and both of my parents moved to Florida,” Hope replied with a shrug as the man picked the lock.

“Why didn’t you mention this place sooner?” he asked. The woman sighed.

“We agreed not to settle down anywhere, remember?” 

The man shrugged and opened the door and stepped inside. “Yeah, but with our new recruits we may have to,” he said, looking around. “Your room’s upstairs?”

“Yeah.” Hope crosses her arms over her chest and kicked the door closed behind her. “Please don’t–”

“I’m gonna go look!” the man interrupted and took off up the staircase. Hope sighed and stepped further into the house, heading in the direction of the living room. She ran her fingers along the arm of the couch before sitting down and moving her hair out of her eyes. She glanced around and stood again, going around to the windows and pulling the curtains shut. 

Scott came back down the stairs and stood in the doorway. “Hey,” he said softly.

She turned and smiled at him. “Hey,” she said back.

“This must be weird for you, huh?” the man said, crossing the room and coming to stand in front of her. “Being in your childhood home.”

“What makes it weird is the fact that my parents aren’t here.”

“We’ll just stay here for a few hours, get to know the guys, then we can go to a hotel.”

“I love you,” she smiled, whispering.

“I love you too.” He leaned in and kissed her, only for them to spring apart when the doorbell rang. “I um…”

“I’ll get it,” the woman said, and made her way to the door. She checked out the peephole and saw who it was and opened the door. “Gentlemen,” she greeted. She stepped aside and motioned for them to enter. “Come on in.” 

The three men entered the house, making their way into the living room.

“Spooky-ass house,” one muttered.

“Ah, you must be Dave,” Scott suddenly spoke from behind the trio. They whipped around and stared at the man. He pointed, like a game show host, to the other two. “Luis and Kurt! I’m assuming?”

“Holy shitballs,” Luis muttered. “This is  _ actually _ happening…”

Hope came over and stood beside Scott, arms crossed again. “You’re the ones who wanted to meet up, to make sure we’re legit. Well here you go.”

“Why’d you agree to it?” Dave asked. “We could’ve called the cops on you for all you know.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken, my friend,” the Ant said. He walked over to the coffee table and opened the laptop sitting atop it. He typed a few things and then turned it around. “We would’ve shut this meeting down if even one of you called the police. We’ve hacked into your phones and computers and can see everything you do.”

“Oh damn!” Dave’s heart dropped into his stomach. 

“You guys have  _ gotta _ lay off on the porn,” the con man said, turning the computer back around. “Malware is gonna  _ destroy _ your phones.”

“How do we know you are Ant and Wasp?” Kurt asked suspiciously.

“What did you bring with you today?” Scott asked.

“What does that–”

“Just answer the question.” The smaller man crossed his arms and leaned back, propping his feet up on the coffee table, only for Hope to come over and nudge him to not do that. He obeyed.

“Cellphone, money, pens, loose change.”

“Keys?”

“Uh… Yes.”

Scott started emptying his own pockets as well as pulling things from the couch cushions. 

“Dave, I believe these are yours,” Hope said, and handed over a set of keys and a wallet.

Luis excitedly checked his pockets. “Holy shit, my stuff’s gone!” he exclaimed. The couple on the couch handed over a wallet, iPhone, and a bundle of receipts as well as a stray rubber band.

“Still does not answer question,” Kurt said a little warily. 

“Look at your stuff,” Scott smirked.

The insect stickers were stuck to the wallets, keys, and other loose objects.

“Now turn on your phones,” said Hope, leaning forward.

“How did you–” Dave started, looking at Kurt’s phone which displayed the ant and bee emojis on a static backdrop, only to be cut off by the man on the couch.

“While I had you distracted by talking about all the porn you guys watch, Hope plugged this”—he held up what looked like a charger attached to a block—“into the ports. Doing so has temporarily disabled any access to them except through this laptop.” He pointed to the computer on the table. 

“Now do you believe us?” the lone woman asked.

“Yeah… yeah,” the three said at the same time.

“We travel around a lot,” Scott informed. “You have to be willing to put up with that.”

“What are you saying?” Luis asked.

“I’m saying if you take this offer, you’ll have to travel with us.”

“We mostly stay the night in hotels or motels,” Hope explained. “So, are you in?”

“Give us one moment,” Luis said quickly and pulled his roommates back into the entryway.

While they waited for the trio to return, Scott pulled a pack of gum from his pocket and offered a stick to Hope. She raised an eyebrow curiously and he shrugged. 

“Dave,” he said simply. The woman nodded and accepted one.

The group seemed to be taking a while, but they hadn’t left since they could still hear them muttering to each other.

“Should we–” Hope was cut off by Scott kissing her again. She sighed through her nose and kissed back deeply. 

Scott pulled away when there was a shout from the doorway, and peeked around Hope and bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. Dave was standing there, covering his eyes. 

“We agree with everything you’ve said and will take up your offer, but please get your own room wherever we stay!” he said. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Hope said, face bright red from getting caught.

***

“Found anything yet?” Paxton asked a colleague by the name of Greer.

The woman shook her head. “It’s been three days. Either they’re taking a break, gone into hiding, or on the move.”

“Dammit,” Paxton mumbled. “Have you heard back from Fury about investigating Scott Lang as a possible suspect?”

Greer shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

“I need to hear back soon,” Paxton sighed. “I need to investigate Lang!”

“It’ll just take some time,” Greer pointed out. “It took Johnny almost five days to get a warrant for the Dormammu case because of the pileup of paperwork.”

“I know,” the man said. “I’m just anxious. This is a big case with many hits and I don’t want anyone else to get burgled.”

“You’ll get the okay soon,” the woman said. “I can feel it.”


	7. Planning A Hit

“The top floor suite, please,” Hope said to the hotel receptionist. 

“It’s your lucky day, ma’am,” the woman behind the desk said. “It’s vacant.”

“Oh thank god,” the brunette sighed. “We’ll need it for just two days, that’s all.”

Luis, sitting on a couch in the waiting area, leaned over to Scott, whom was showing Kurt the ropes of how the laptop was set up. 

“Bro,” the Latino man said. “Scotty Mr. Ant sir.”

Scott groaned and looked at him. “What?”

“She said two days only. Is she sure that’s enough time?”

“Hell yeah it is. We usually only do one night. Two days is more than enough time!”

“If you’re sure…” The man in the snapback leaned back.

Hope smiled kindly at the receptionist and accepted the five keycards. “Thank you so much!” she said, then turned around and waved for the guys to follow her. She held her hand out for Scott to take and the group headed off.

“Do we need to take separate trips up or will you two be able to keep your hands to yourselves?” Dave asked.

Scott merely snorted.  _ “Sure _ we can be modest for once.”

“Hope has her hand on your ass, doesn’t she?” 

“Always!”

The elevator arrived and they loaded in. Scott and Hope stood in the back corner and spoke with each other in low voices, Luis was by the emergency controls and playing a game on his phone, Kurt and Dave were looking at something on the former’s phone. 

“Camera does not have audio so if you want to talk, let’s talk,” Kurt said suddenly. “Is long trip up.”

“Okay well, I already have our next target in mind. He’s one of Steve Rogers’ friends. Rogers contacted him after Hope and I… y’know. Anyway, he’s in San Fran to help Rogers stay safe. I’ve been tracking his routine since he got here and there’s a three hour period where they aren’t together.” Scott looked to the doors suddenly. “We’re getting visitors.”

Everyone tensed up and started acting “natural” as the doors opened (Scott and Hope immediately started making out, Hope’s hand up Scott’s shirt and Scott holding one of her legs up by her thigh) and two businessmen entered. They tried their best to ignore the couple. Luis glances over and had to cover a laugh with a cough.

When the elevator arrived on their floor, the couple separated, smiled at each other and got their bags and exited, the other three following them out.

The moment they entered the suite, Scott turned to the three. “If you’ll excuse us, we have some business to take care of.”

And with that, he and Hope ran off, leaving their bags by the door.

“They’re gonna have sex, aren’t they?” Dave sighed.

“Most likely,” Kurt replied.

“Are we really going to have to put up with them doing this all the time?”

“At least we’re getting paid?” Luis tried to be positive.

***

“His name is Samuel Wilson,” Scott explained to the group. “He’s a pilot.”

“Uh huh. And what’re we gonna do?” Luis asked.

“Like I said before, I’ve been tracking his daily schedule. The only time he’s not with his friend Steve is a three hour period where he’s going around uptown. First, he goes for a jog in the park, then he wanders around and goes shopping for another two hours.”

“One of us—me or Scott—is going to be a jogger that’s visiting some friends for break,” Hope said. “Whichever of us it is will get his wallet and phone, if he had them on his person. While that’s happening, Kurt will hack into his bank accounts and his phone. With his bank account, he will drain it completely. Leave nothing behind, not even a penny. With the phone, you’ll display either my marker or Scott’s. Dave will be our getaway driver, waiting at the edge of the park.

“You guys got that?” Scott asked. 

“One question: What am I gonna be doing?” Luis asked. “I wanna have a job in this! What do I do? Please let me do something.”

Hope glanced at Scott. He raised his eyebrows at her and she returned the look with a scrunched nose. He tilted his head to the side just slightly and she sighed and nodded. He grinned. Nonverbal communication.

“Okay, you’re gonna be waiting until Sam chases whoever steals from him,” Scott explained. “Then you walk up and stop in front of him, pretend to tie your shoe. Then start to apologise for cutting him off, go into a story and keep him distracted as long as possible. Grab his arm if you have to.”

“So who’s going to con Mr. Wilson?” Luis asked. 

Scott and Hope exchanged another series of looks. They both nodded and Dave groaned loudly.

“Can you two  _ please _ just speak?” he shouted. 

“I’m gonna do it,” Scott said. “Hope’s already been recognised by Sam’s friend so it’d be too risky for her to be out there again right now. For all we know Steve told Sam what she looks like.”

“Plus,” Hope added, “Scott’s like a chameleon when it comes to disguises.”

Scott gasped and turned to his girlfriend. “Can I wear the beard? Please?”

“You want to bring  _ Antoine _ out?” She grimaced.

“Please,” he begged. “I’ll let you use the strap-on tonight.”

“Oh my  _ god _ ! I didn’t need to hear that!” Dave yelled and covered his ears.

Hope sighed and took both of Scott’s hands in her own. “Fine,” she said. “But, you’re not allowed to touch yourself–”

“Deal,” Scott exclaimed.

“ _ And— _ I wasn’t finished—the lights stay  _ on _ .”

Scott stared at her. “Oh my god, you’re a monster.”

“This is amazing,” Luis said from the couch. “How comfortable you two are, talking about your sex life in front of us.”

“Shut up, Luis,” Scott pointed at him. “Okay, everyone! We’re doing this tomorrow. So everyone needs to rest up, get the first day nerves out, I’ll order a pizza, and then Hope and I will… be in our room.”

“They already claimed a room,” Dave said once the couple was gone. “And they’re going to have sex again.”

“Scotty said he’ll order pizza,” Luis pointed out.

“Dammit, you’re right.”

***

“Paxton,” Fury’s voice came from his office. “I need to see you for a moment in my office.”

The officer looked to his colleagues, then stood and headed to his superior. “Yes, sir?” he said.

“I finally got to your request to investigate Mr. Scott Lang,” the one-eyed man explained as he took a seat behind his desk. “After some careful consideration and debating, I’ve decided to grant your request.”

“Oh, thank you, Captain,” the officer said. 

“But,” Fury added, “You’re not allowed to bring him in unless you’re absolutely certain and have evidence that isn’t ‘But he looks like the man in the photo’.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“The Ant and the Wasp are masters of disguise,” Fury pointed out. “You may have the wrong guy.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Paxton nodded. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t make me regret this, officer,” Fury stated in a serious tone.

“I won’t, sir.”

“You have my faith.”


	8. Sam Wilson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the characters are a bit... out of character. But this is an AU so it’s expected and/or necessary. Not to mention they’re con artists in this fic.

_ “I keep forgetting Scott’s got a beard now,” _ Dave’s voice said from over the com.

“Do you mind? I’m trying to focus. He’s not here yet,” Scott scolded in a hushed tone.

_ “Sorry,” _ Luis said.  _ “We’re just nervous. This is our first heist like this.” _

_ “It’s not really a heist,” _ Hope replied.  _ “It’s a con. There’s a subtle difference.” _

_ “Oooh… Yeah yeah yeah. I get it now.” _

“Shut up, please,” Scott hissed. “He’s coming.”

_ “Hacking phone now,” _ Kurt muttered.

After Sam jogged passed Scott, the latter spun out from behind a thick tree and started jogging after him.

_ “Do you have your FitBit, Scott?” _ Hope joked in his ear.  _ “You could get your steps in right now.” _

Scott merely rolled his eyes.

_ “Did you just roll your eyes at me?” _

“No, ma’am,” Scott muttered.

_ “I thought so.” _

Scott picked up the pace just a bit. 

“Those shorts don’t have pockets,” Scott noted. “And he has his phone strapped to his arm. This is gonna be a smidge more difficult.”

_ “Change of plans then. Get the phone; we can sell it. You got Rogers’ wallet back in his pocket without him noticing,” _ Hope reminded him.  _ “You can surely get Wilson’s phone from his arm the same way.” _

“You’re right.” He whispered to himself, “I’m the boss, I’m the boss, I’m the boss.”

_ “I think you should keep the beard,”  _ Hope admitted, peering out of the window from the back of Luis’s van.  _ “You look good.” _

_ “Please don’t get off to your boyfriend’s fake beard in the back of this van!” _ Dave pleaded.  _ “Or I  _ swear _ I will leave.” _

Scott huffed and caught up to Sam. “Hello stranger,” he said to the man.

Sam glanced over at him. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“Nope,” Scott shook his head. “You and me, total strangers.”

_ “You and  _ I _ , Scott.” _ Hope sighed.

“I see,” Sam nodded slowly. “And why’re you talking to me?”

“Well,  _ you’re _ a guy out jogging by yourself,  _ I’m _ a guy out jogging by myself… Thought we could talk?”

“Okay…” Sam glanced around.

Scott smiled and scratched his nose. “So, what’s your story?”

“Well… I can’t really share some stuff,” the other man replied. 

“Ooo. You a spy?”

“Nope.”

“CIA?”

“Close.”

“FBI?”

“Closer.”

“Military?”

“Bingo.”

“Ah… What branch?”  _ Air Force. For a pilot's license. _

“Air Force.” 

“Fun, fun.”

“And you?” Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow.

_ “Shit,” _ Hope muttered.  _ “Um… You’re a uh… You’re a teacher! Science. At a middle school.” _

“Middle school science teacher,” Scott said quickly.

“I see…” 

_ “He seem suspicious,” _ Kurt said quickly.  _ “Get phone and get out of there.” _

_ “Clap his arm in that weird, guy-greeting thing and get his phone and get out of there, Scott,” _ Hope pleaded.

“Look, man,” Scott sighed. “I gotta go. My friend I’m visiting is supposed to be returning home soon.” He patted Sam’s shoulder and managed to slip the phone from the arm-holster and stick a sticker in its place, then he slipped the phone into his sweatpants pocket and took off. 

“That is one strange man,” Sam muttered to himself. Then he cleared his throat.

“You know I saw you, right?” he called after him. Scott froze.

_ “Oh shit,” _ Dave’s eyes widened.  _ “That ain’t good.” _

_ “Scott, get out of there!” _ Hope shouted.

“You’re working with the girl that mugged my friend,” Sam continued.

“I am Antoine Richardson,” Scott said slowly, turning back to face the target. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got in yesterday from Cleveland. Besides, stealing is bad and illegal. Why would I want to deal with criminal charges.”

_ “Luis, it’s your time to shine,” _ Hope said.  _ “Distract him.” _

Luis stood up from the bench he had been sitting on and started to power walk toward the two men. He stopped right between them and looked down at his shoes. “Oh yikes. I’ll trip if I don’t tie these tight enough,” he said, and took his time leaning down to untie and re-tie the shoe, giving Scott enough time to run away.

“Dude, move,” Sam said to Luis, and jumped over the bent-over man.

“Dammit. I didn’t think about that,” Luis thought out loud and took off after him. He caught up to the man and grabbed his arm. “Sir, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“I was just robbed!” Sam yelled at him. “Let go of me!”

Luis did so and smiled nervously. “Gotta blast!” he said.  _ “Adiós amigo. Lamento mucho todo esto.” _

The van slammed to a stop beside the men and the side door slid open and Scott stuck his head out.

“Dude, get in!” he shouted and Luis threw himself in. 

“What the fuck?” Sam shrieked as Scott flashed him a middle finger as the vehicle tore out of the lot.

“Was the finger necessary, Scott?” Hope sighed from one of the seats.

“He found out my cover,” Scott shrugged. “He deserved it.”

Hope pulled a face and lightly kicked the man’s leg as he stood up from the floor.

“What model phone is it?” Kurt suddenly spoke up.

“iPhone X,” Scott replied, tossing the device over. “Worth almost a grand when it’s new or good condition.”

He sat beside Hope and strapped himself in.

“I manage to get into bank account and drain it,” the Russian man informed. “Sorry we did not get any pocket money.”

“It’s fine, man,” Scott waved him off. “Won’t be the first time.”

“Any idea where we’re goin’ next?” Dave asked from the driver’s seat. 

“I think we were planning on upstate New York.”

_ “Daaaaamn _ , seriously?” Luis asked. 

“Who is target?” Kurt asked, typing away on his laptop.

“You guys know a  _ Tony Stark?” _ Hope smirked deviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you could, please, leave a comment?


	9. A Person of Interest

“Mr. Sam Wilson, a close friend of Mr. Steve Rogers, came in earlier today,” Paxton explained to his team. “He claims to have been robbed in broad daylight and saw the faces of two people: His robber and an accomplice.”

One fellow officer raised his hand. “What did they steal?”

“His phone,” Paxton replied.

_ “Just _ his phone? Not his wallet or… or  _ anything _ else?” 

“He didn’t have anything else on him at the time. No pockets.”

“Who stole from him?” another officer asked.

“The Ant,” Paxton replied, showing a picture of the armband with the sticker on it on the screen beside him. “But it seems he and the Wasp have expanded their team. As far as we know, there’s at least one other teammate. An ex-convict by the name of Luis Alvarez.” He pressed a button on the remote in his hand and a police sketch and old mugshot appeared overtop the photo of the armband.

“Oh yeah, I remember him being at San Quentin,” yet another officer said. “He got caught stealing two smoothie machines.”

“What was Ant’s disguise this time?” the first officer asked.

“I’m glad you asked, Johnny,” Paxton exclaimed, and pressed the button twice. “I didn’t realise it was him until he showed us the phone-arm-holster.” A police sketch of a thick-bearded man swiped onto the screen.

“What doesn’t make sense about this,” the second officer said, “is the fact he didn’t just give up and run away when he realised he’d been caught.”

“It’s like the New Jersey Cross case,” Johnny noted. “Didn’t he learn from that?”

“The Wasp hasn’t been spotted in a few days,” Paxton continued. “And the Ant and Alvarez have disappeared after getting in a brown van. Mr. Wilson didn’t catch the plates and there weren’t any cameras around.”

“Well  _ that _ sucks,” Johnny groaned.

“We’re going to keep investigating,” Paxton said. “Keeps your eyes and ears on the alert. You’re dismissed.” She shut the case file and sighed. 

“Sir,” Greer came up to him. “I actually have something you may want to see. It’s about the Wasp.”

“Good news, I hope?” Paxton guessed.

“I hope it is.”

“Then what is it?”

“I continued to go through face recognition with the dating site profile picture she used for her alias Susan, and… We finally found a match.”

“Oh my god, really?”

Greer nodded. “A woman by the name of Hope van Dyne.”

“Doctors Pym and van Dyne’s daughter?” Paxton asked. “I thought she ran away seven years ago and they left it as a cold case when they couldn’t find anything?”

“That’s true,” Greer nodded. “But it’s uncanny. It’s gotta be her.” 

“We have to look for her, then,” Paxton sighed.

***

The van pulled in at a hotel parking lot. Dave cut the engine and turned to look at the four in the back, only to see the Ant and Wasp slumped against each other.

“Are they asleep?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Luis nodded.  _ “Se rascó la barba por un rato y luego salieron como una luz. _ It was weird to watch.”

“Goddamn, they’re strange.”

“Need to remind them to pay us,” Kurt stated, undoing his seatbelt. “And wake them up.”

Luis reached over and shook Scott’s arm. “Wake up, Scotty. We’re here and we need you two to do this stuff. I dunno what to do.” 

Scott whined and sat up. “What?”

“We’re at a hotel. It’s eleven at night,” Luis explained.

“Oh.” The con rubbed his eyes. “Okay.”

He turned to Hope and nudged her a few times before she woke up groggily. “What?” she groaned.

“We’re at a hotel,” he replied as Luis, Kurt, and Dave got out of the vehicle. “We have to go in.”

“Okay,” she sighed and unbuckled herself and got up.

The group got their bags and headed for the building, Dave and Kurt conversing in hushed tones and Scott and Hope trying not to fall asleep mid-walk while holding each other’s hands tightly.

“Kurt and I’ll room together,” Dave said to Luis.

The latter went to the front desk and asked for three rooms. Getting another suite would be too suspicious after what they had just pulled. Once they had the room keys, they headed up.

There was no worry over the handsy couple screwing that night. They got in their room and immediately fell asleep once they’d hit the bed. 

Luis, Kurt, and Dave were having a mini meeting in the latter two’s room. 

“Have they told either of you how much they have total?” Luis asked. “Are they gonna be paying us fairly?”

“I tried to look on computer,” Kurt said. “They have no record from what I see. I keep looking.”

“They said we each get eight hundred per con,” Dave reminded. “Total, that’s 2.4K a con… So they must be loaded. Also, how much does it cost a night for a hotel suite?”

“Depends on hotel,” Kurt replied. “Almost three thousand.”

“That plus the two thousand-four hundred… Five grand…” Luis did the math in his head. “Scotty gave me money to pay for these three rooms. They were about a hundred each. We stayed in that suite two nights…” He drew invisible math problems in the air. “Seven thousand… Seven thousand-three hundred.”

“That’s almost a million,” Dave pointed out.

“Are they millionaires?” Kurt wondered aloud.

“Why don’t they just… buy a house? Settle down there when they aren’t mugging people?”

“Plus, they can save on hotel bills,” Luis added.

“Are they paying us right?” Dave asked after a moment.

“Maybe they’ll give us a raise after a few?”

Kurt typed away on the laptop some more and suddenly froze. “I found it,” he said in a tone barely over a whisper. “And is more than three banks combined…”

“Kurt, that sounds like an exaggeration,” Dave stated.

“Show us,” Luis said quickly.

Kurt turned the laptop around and a number scrolled onto the screen. It almost seemed impossible.

“Is that—?”

“4,814,446...” 

“How long have they been at this?” 

“I- I don’t know! Check back to when they first appeared in any news outlet!”

Kurt turned the laptop back around and typed quickly. “The first occurrence recorded was two years ago.”

“That- Holy shit…”

“Okay, this is making head hurt. I am going to sleep now,” Kurt shook his head and shut the laptop.

“Yeah… yeah… I’m gonna go, too,” Luis said and stood up.

“Goodnight,” Dave said.

***

Luis stepped into the hall and froze. Leaning against the across wall, arms crossed, hair a mess and fake beard gone, was Scott.

“Oh. Hey Sco–”

“Why do you want to know the contents of mine and Hope’s account?” the con asked, standing just a bit straighter.

“I’m- I’m sorry, Scotty,” Luis said quickly. “We were just curious and wanted to know how you two are able to pay for everything. I’m sorry.”

Scott tilted his head slightly and a coy smirk played on his lips. “Is that all?” he asked. 

Luis stayed silent a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Yeah. That- That’s all.”

“Mmhmm…” The con artist pushed himself off the wall. “There’s a bar downstairs. It’s two a.m. but it’s still open according to the menu in our room. Let me buy you a drink.”

“You don’t have–”

“No, no. I insist. You did good with the ploy. You’ve earned it.”

“Oh… Okay then.”

***

“So you don’t have a safe you lug around with you that all that money’s in?” Luis asked as Scott took a long drink. The latter shook his head.

“No,” he said. “That’d be too risky to lose or get questioned about. We have a bank account but we never make big withdrawals, so we don’t raise suspicion.”

“Oh. Oh cool…”

“Look, I’m sorry your pay isn’t much.” Scott’s speech was starting to slur together. 

“Would you two ever stop this and settle down somewhere together?” 

Scott scoffed. “She wouldn’t want that. Too suspicious. Plus she’s too anxious about us getting found out or we’d run out of money or something. I don’t know.”

“Do  _ you _ want to?”

“Maybe?” the drunk man shrugged. “Yeah, I do. But I’m not  _ that good of a boyfriend. _ My last girlfriend, I left her without saying anything after three weeks or something… I don’t remember. It was years ago.” He looked over at the other man. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course!” Luis nodded.

Scott pointed an unsteady finger at him. “I read your arrest report and,” he hiccuped. “I’m proud of you for getting as far as you did with that smoothie machine.”

“Two. Two smoothie machines.”

The drunk started crying. “I’m sorry I got it wrong! I corrected Hope about it but- but-”

Luis got up quickly and helped him off the stool. “I think you’ve had enough. You’re drunk, bro. Let’s get you up to Hope.”

“Oh…  _ Hope… _ I love Hope. She’s so nice and pretty…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you love her.”

He helped the man out of the bar and to the elevator.

Was it really four a.m? They had a flight at nine.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The average bank only holds $200,000 at a time.


	10. The Flight

When Scott woke up, he was hungover. But thankfully, Luis had set out some pain medication and aplastic cup of water for him.

Hope was up and changing when he sat up. 

“Have a fun night?” the woman asked, pulling a shirt over her head.

“Not really, no.”

“What happened?” She went over and sat beside him, rubbing gentle circles on his back as he took the medication and downed the water.

“I couldn’t sleep so I decided to check in on the new recruits,” he explained, leaning into her side. “I overheard them talking about  _ us _ —our  _ money.” _

“Oh…”

“Luis came out and I confronted him about it and he explained they were just curious about some shit and—he seemed genuine, don’t worry. I’m not  _ that _ dumb. I offered to buy him a drink. So we went and we both started drinking. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Hope frowned a little and ran her fingers through his hair. “You’re just hungover, baby. You know your tolerance isn’t that high.”

There was a knock on the door and Hope looked over as Scott groaned loudly.

“My head is going to implode,” he said.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Hope said as she stood up and went over to open the door. “We’ll get you some coffee in a bit to help with that migraine.”

“I don’t like coffee.”

“We have to leave in ten minutes in we’re going to make it with time to spare if you’re planning on that.” The new trio was standing in the doorway. 

“We’ll be right down,” the woman said. “You three go ahead and go on. We’ll be right behind you.”

“You sure? We can take some of your stuff to the van.”

The woman glanced at her hungover boyfriend.

“Just take it all,” he whined. 

The three entered the room and gathered up the few bags and headed back out. 

Hope moved over to the bed again and sat on her knees on the mattress. “Come on,” she said. “We have to go if we’re gonna make it in time.”

“Okay,” the man sighed. “Let’s do this.”

***

They managed to board the flight without a hitch. Scott and Hope and Kurt and Dave were seated beside each other, Luis seated in the row between the groups of two. 

Kurt had his laptop out, playing a movie that Dave was very engrossed in.

Scott and Hope had a word search book they were completing. 

Luis was asleep, snoring away.

It was an uneventful trip, to say the least.

***

“I ordered us an Uber,” Hope informed, looking up from her phone. Yes, another new one. She and Scott get new phones and new numbers every time they finish a con. It’s so they can’t be tracked.

“We’re going to stay a few nights at a hotel, to get everything in order and plan this out  _ perfectly,” _ Scott informed. “Okay?”

He got mumbled and eager agreements from the remaining three.

***

“Mrs. Potts,” a young intern knocked on the door. The woman at the desk looked up. 

“Mr. Parker!” she smiled. “Come on in.” 

The teenager entered the office and fiddled with his access tag on the lanyard around his neck nervously. 

“What can I help you with?” the strawberry blonde woman asked, folding her hands in front of her. “Tony didn’t pass out in his lab again, did he?”

“No, no,” Peter Parker shook his head. “He went on a coffee run… all for himself, I’m guessing. Anyway, no. That’s not why- why I came in. Miss Angela said to tell you she received an email from a security company located in San Francisco. They’re apparently extending to New York and wanted to possibly talk to you and Mr. Stark about… About working with you? Like, installing security systems for you here? Apparently they already have a team that flew out here for location siting.”

“Really?” Pepper typed on her computer and scrolled for a moment. “She forwarded it to me,” she said. She turned back to the intern and smiled. “Thank you for passing the message along to me, Peter. I’ll look over this and talk with Mr. Stark about it.”

“Oh. You’re– You’re welcome, ma’am.”

The boy left and Pepper turned back to her computer. She looked over the email again. It looked legit, and there was even a link to a website for the company.

She pressed the link and the page came up. X-Con Security Firms. Originating in San Francisco, extending to New York. She picked up her phone and called down to her husband in his lab.

***

“X-Con?” Scott said. “Really?”

“What? It sounds cool and believable!” Luis exclaimed.

“Let’s hope they fall for it,” Hope sighed and settled herself behind Scott, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder.

“Someone opened website,” Kurt announced. “IP address say Potts.”

“Oh Miss Potts,” Hope fake-pouted. “I expected you to be smarter than this, falling for a scam email.”

***

“It’s been five days,” Paxton grouched. “Why haven’t they  _ done _ anything?”

“You  _ want _ someone to get conned?” Detective Johnny Storm asked.  _ “Wow, _ Sergeant. You’ve certainly–”

“I want new leads, a slip up.  _ Something!” _

“What if they left the state?” Greer offered as an explanation.

“That’d– Oh my god… That’s  _ actually _ a good hypothesis.”

Greer smiled, accomplished.

“Have you found anything on Lang?” Paxton asked both detectives.

“Not yet,” Johnny shook his head. “He fell off the face of the earth it seems about eight years ago.”

“You’re serious?” Paxton hurried over and looked at the file Johnny had been referring to. “That’s the year after he left Maggie with no warning or explanation…” he noted aloud.

“I mean, it could be nothing? Maybe he moved or something?” Johnny suggested.

“I don’t know,” Paxton shook his head. “It’s a probability.” 

“What do you want me to do?” the detective asked. 

“Go to all his past addresses in the city. See if you can learn anything.” He turned to Greer. “Greer, you do the same for van Dyne.”

“Yes, sir!” The woman began typing immediately and her printer activated.


	11. Stark Industries

The Starks has agreed to meet with the security team that was visiting New York. They had agreed to hold the meeting at the Stark Industries tower.

About six minutes before the set meeting time, the five arrived at the tower in a rental car.

Before getting out, they checked their disguises. Yes, it’s possible they hadn’t heard about them all the way over here, but one can never be too careful in a situation like this.

Scott had fake facial hair once again, and it was a full beard and moustache.

“You look hot,” Hope had commented once they finished applying it. 

“Try not to look at me too much, then,” Scott had replied. “Or don’t pay any mind to it. Can’t have you distracted.”

The woman had merely huffed.

She was in a long, straight ginger wig and had her original freckles covered with makeup. 

Luis and the other two had on suits. Dave kept commenting on how he felt naked without his hat or beanie. Kurt had to use some makeup to cover his tattoos that would be visible.

“Are we ready?” Kurt asked, double checking his hands to make sure none of the makeup had come off.

Hope looked around at everyone and sighed, reaching over to button one more button on Scott’s shirt.

“Everyone remember their aliases?” Scott asked.

“William Oliver,” Dave nodded.

Kurt leaned back. “Alexander Ivan.”

“Vidia Green,” Hope said as she twisted a strand of the wig hair around her finger.

“Oh yeah, totally,” Luis said. “Oscar Reeves, bro!”

Scott grinned and pointed at him. “Hold back on the rambling and ‘bros’ unless we say otherwise, okay?” 

Luis nodded quickly. 

“And I’m Curtis Anderson,” Scott said after a moment. “Hope chose it, don’t give me that look,  _ Oscar.” _

“Don’t forget any of these names, okay?” Hope said. “If any of us slip up, even just around each other, we’ll be _completely_ and _totally_ _screwed.”_

***

“Ms. Potts.”

Pepper didn’t looked up from the paperwork she was signing. “Hello, Mr. Stark.”

“You know,  _ technically _ you’re Mrs. Stark,” the man in the doorway pointed out.

Pepper smiled and looked up. “What is it,  _ Mr. Potts.” _

“Okay, I actually like the sound of that,” the man said. “Anyway, the folks from X-Con are here and they’re waiting in the foyer on floor one.”

“Thank you, Tony,” his wife said. “Let’s not keep them waiting! Let’s go.”

***

The group of five had already swiped loose change and money from employees and interns passing by as they waited, leaving behind stickers of ants and wasps in their place.

With what they’d gotten, it totalled up to almost fourty dollars and eighty-two cents.

Everything was stuffed into a purse Hope had on her when Tony and Pepper walked in. 

“Ah, you must be the firm from X-Con,” Tony said. “Really-  _ Really _ weird name.”

“Yeah, I know,” Scott replied. “But we didn’t pick it and they refuse to change it so it’s stuck.” 

“I see,” the barely-taller man said. “Well, shall we give you a tour?”

“That would be great!” Kurt said. “And then we see what make and model current security is, yes?”

“Uh… Sure?” Pepper looked at Tony. “That would be okay, right? I mean, they’ll need to see it to compare their own systems to. And they need to see if it’s hackable or not.”

Tony looked over the group for a moment before nodding. “But just to inspect it,” he said.

“Of course, sir,” Hope smiled kindly.

“I don’t believe we got your names?” Pepper noted in an apologetic tone. “I’m Pepper and this is my husband Tony.”

“We know,” Luis said, then quickly elaborated. “I mean, we know because Stark Industries is one of—if not  _ the— _ most famous science firms in the world!”

“Right you are,” Tony grinned.

“I’m L–  _ Oscar!  _ Oscar… I’m Oscar Reeves.”

“You sure there, buddy?”

“Yeah, positive.”

“I’m Vidia Green,” Hope cut in with an apologetic smile. “It’s Oscar’s first day. He’s just nervous.”

“Oh, that’s totally fine!” Pepper insisted.

Hope smiled more faux-genuinely. “These are Alexander Ivan, William Oliver… and Curtis Anderson!”

“Now that we all know each other, shall we get this tour started?” 

With a mutual agreement, they headed off.

***

“Oh my god,” Kurt said as he looked over the security system.

“What is it?” Pepper asked.

“Security system is terrible! One could easily hack into.”

“Well that’s not good…”

“Hey! I was told this was one of the most superior systems out right now!” Tony pouted and crossed his arms.

Hope snorted and nudged Scott. “He looks like you when you’re upset!” she whispered to him. Scott scoffed and shoved her gently.

“I demonstrate for you to show how easy it is?” Kurt offered. 

“He’s our expert,” Dave explained. “He won’t do anything but hack into the system.”

“There’s important information there that no one is supposed to see,” Tony said.

“Not worry,” Kurt said. “I will not look at anything. Just get in system.”

“You have all our promise,” Hope assured.

“Alright then,” Tony said after a moment. “Show me.”

Kurt looked to Dave, who nodded.

The former opened his laptop and started typing. A few seconds later, the security monitors shut down and a message reading “Hello” appeared.

“It took me ten seconds to get into system and shut everything down,” the Russian man said.

“That was impressive, Mr. Ivan,” Pepper said. She looked to Tony. “They may be right about the system.”

“Well, he’s a professional,” Tony scoffed. “It’d be easy for him!”

“Then get Peter here and have him try,” Pepper egged.

“Fine.” 

***

The intern was able to hack into the system after a few nervous tries.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” the teenager said. “But they’re right. You need a better, hack-proof system.”

Honestly, the system had been fine. The team had had Kurt weaken it and take down a few firewalls before Peter had come in to try to get through.

Tony groaned and shook his head. “Fine,” he said. “Do what you need to do. Pete, I need to speak with you outside.”

“Yes, sir, I um… I need to speak with you, too.”

The two headed outside as Kurt started setting up equipment.

***

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said. “I don’t know what you want to talk about but I need to tell you that I have a weird feeling about those people.”

“That’s what I was gonna say!” Tony exclaimed.

“Your security system is perfect as is. It was easy for me to hack into, almost too easy.”

“I knew there was nothing wrong with it! Bruce helped choose and set it up! He would never choose a weak system!”

Peter suddenly panicked. “Wait. You just told them to set up their system…”

“Oh god.”

“Wait!” Peter yelled. “One more thing…”

“What’s up, kiddo?” Tony crosses his arms anxiously. 

“I follow some people from San Francisco.”

“Okay… And?”

“There’s been some people being conned. Two years now. The people doing it are called the Ant and the Wasp. The recently recruited a man that looks a lot like Mr. Reeves.”

“Shit. Oh fuck…”

“Did we just–”

“We need to contact the authorities.”

***

“They’re taking a while out there,” Pepper thought aloud. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take as long as you need,” Luis said. “We’ll be right here helping Alexander.”

Kurt gave him a subtle thumbs up as Pepper thanked them for everything and stepped outside. Once the door was shut, Hope and the others gathered around Kurt and watched as he got into the bank accounts of everyone in the building as well as the official account for the company itself and transferred it all to the grifters’ account, making sure it was untraceable. Over thirty billion dollars.

Scott let out a laugh and looked at Hope with a wide grin. “We’re rich! Baby, we’re richer than Stark!” She pulled him over to her and kissed him eagerly.

“We’ve gotta get out of here. Display the message while I get one of these ceiling tiles open,” Luis said, then climbed up onto the desk and set to work.

Just as they started climbing up one-by-one, there was a shout from outside and Scott stared with wide eyes at the door.

He looked back to Hope who had just gotten up into the ceiling and was reaching down to him. He grabbed her hand and she pulled him up just as the door burst open. He set the tile back in place and crawled as fast as he could to catch up with them. Luis was getting another tile loose and climbed down, reaching up to help Dave.

“I’ll meet you all outside!” Scott called out to them.

“Scott! No!” Hope cried. He kissed her deeply, passionately. She stared after him as he backed up and started crawling another way. She came out of the daze and screamed at him. “Scott!”

***

Scott dropped down out of the ceiling in a usually-secluded hallway. 

When he rose up, he heard a gun cock behind him. “Hands in the air, and turn around!” 

The con artist complied and turned, hands raised. He’d been caught, again, but this time there was no escaping… At least he had bought Hope and the others some time to get away. 

“Down on the ground!” the officer shouted at him.

He did so.

The officer came over and pulled out some handcuffs. He was led outside and shoved into the back of a police car. 

At least Hope was okay.


	12. The Convict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun duuuuuuun!  
> everyone’s favourite fbi agent is introduced, accusations are made, and an identity is revealed.

“So, Curtis Anderson… Why were you climbing out of the ceiling in that hallway?”

Scott looked up from the table he was cuffed to. “I heard a noise in the ceiling and my four colleagues had left to find a bathroom and to set up security cameras. They’d told me to stay in the office to check to see that they were set up correctly.”

“Then why was a message from the Ant and the Wasp, a duo of con artists from San Francisco, found on the computer in the very office you were supposedly stationed in?”

“I don’t know! I must’ve left before it was hacked into! Look, two people checked the security system we were replacing: my coworker Alexander and a Stark Industries intern named Peter. I know Alexander personally and he wouldn’t be secretly working for–”

“We’re not talking about–”

“–con artists. But that Peter kid, I don’t know him. Just met him today. And he’s working as an intern. Interns don’t get paid much or anything at all. He might’ve hacked in to try to steal money.” Scott gasped and leaned forward. “Is Peter even his  _ real name? _ Is he even a teenager? Maybe he’s one of those people that age slowly, like Elijah Wood or Margot Robbie? Maybe he’s the Ant or Wasp! Has he  _ always _ lived in New York?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” the officer said. “I have a few more questions for you to answer.”

“Wanna see a magic trick?”

“Not really, no. You’re in for me to interrogate.”

“Humour me, bud.”

The officer sighed. 

“It’s only four little words and a hand gesture,” Scott assured.

“Fine.”

Scott wiggled his fingers and spread his hands as far as they would go with the handcuffs. “I want my lawyer.”

***

“The Ant and the Wasp are two con artists located in San Francisco,” FBI Agent Jimmy Woo informed the police force. “After news got out that they have moved here and hit Stark Industries, a police sergeant from the SFPD contacted me and informed me of who they were and what they’ve done.” 

“Why haven't we heard about them until just now?” an officer asked.

“They apparently tried to con someone in New Jersey but failed, then fled to San Francisco,” Woo explained. “They’re highly intelligent, chameleons with disguises, and apparently have expanded their team.”

“According to the files, there’s only been one confirmed addition: An ex-convict by the name Luis Alvarez, a Latino male who was arrested three years ago for stealing smoothie machines from a Walmart,” a fellow agent, Natasha Romanoff, read.

“That is correct,” Woo said. “The officer in San Francisco informed me they have suspicions about who the Ant and the Wasp are. One is based on a hunch and the other by facial recognition.”

“Who?” an officer asked.

“The Ant, a man by the name Scott Edward Harris Lang. The Wasp, the daughter of scientists Henry ‘Hank’ Pym and Janet van Dyne… Hope Nicole van Dyne.” Agent Woo pressed a button on the remote in his hand and two pictures appeared on the screen: One of a man with dark brown hair, smiling at the camera; he didn’t look like the kind of guy who would dress up and steal from innocent people; The other photo was a cropped image of a woman with medium-length almost-black hair and a stern face. 

“This is the only recent photograph of Miss van Dyne we could find,” Woo explained. “She ran away from home when she was young and is amazing at avoiding cameras.”

“So van Dyne is the only one confirmed?” another officer asked. Woo nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

The officer that had been sent in to interrogate Curtis Anderson came into the briefing room and sighed loudly. “He lawyered up.”

“Does he even have a lawyer?” Woo asked.

“I don’t know, but he’s refusing to talk without one.”

“Dammit.”

“I know.”

***

“Scott won’t talk without a lawyer,” Hope stated. “And he won’t tell them the truth either way.”

“That’s good,” Luis said. “Right?”

“It’s fantastic!” the woman exclaimed, moving her hands as she spoke. She made her way to the suitcase of disguises. “I just need the right disguise and makeup.” 

“You may need a lot of makeup,” Dave said. “Your cover’s been blown.”

She looked up, eyes wide. Kurt turned his laptop around and Dave pointed to a photograph on the Web page.

“Welcome to the front page, Hope van Dyne.”

***

“Your lawyer is on her way,” Agent Woo said as he entered the room and sat across from the con. “You know it’s illegal to lie to law enforcement, right?”

“Trust me, I’m aware,” Scott said. “But I’m not lying. My ID, license, and insurance cards are all in my wallet. Feel free to run them.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see when Ms. Rush gets here,” Woo said. 

Scott sighed. “When she gets here, she’ll confirm my identity, you mean. There would be no way for her to confirm my story since the security cameras were all down and I was the only one in the room at the time.”

“Whatever you say.”

Scott sat back and drummed his fingers on the table top a few times before looking back to Woo. “Can you do something for me?” he asked.

“You didn’t use your phone call yet?”

“No, I haven’t,” Scott shook his head. “But that’s not what I was going to ask.”

“Then what?”

Scott suddenly leaned forward a bit and pointed to his nose. “Can you scratch my nose? It itches. My back hurts because of this chair so it’s a pain to lean down to scratch it myself and I can’t reach it because I’m cuffed.”

“What the heck, man?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wouldn’t mind, please kudos, bookmark, and comment? it would mean a lot!


	13. The Escape

“You must be Miss Beatrice Rush,” Agent Woo greeted, two days later, a blonde haired woman with icy blue eyes and dramatic cheekbones.

“Yes.” She had a deeper voice and an English accent. “Where is my client?”

“Right this way,” the agent gestured toward a hallway and led her away.

He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. “Mr. Anderson will be here momentarily. You arrived sooner than we expected.”

“When I saw he had been detained, I came as soon as I could,” she explained as she looked around the room.

“Oh, here he comes,” Woo said and stepped to the side to allow a handcuffed Scott Lang into the room. 

He looked over the woman standing there. It took him a moment to recognise her. She sent him their subtle hand signal and he returned it as best as he could. 

“Both of you, take a seat,” Agent Woo said.

They complied, taking up the two seats across from the agent. 

“I would just like to state that Mr. Anderson has done nothing wrong,” the woman stated. 

“He was caught fleeing the scene of an Ant and Wasp robbery!” Agent Woo said.

“Have you spoken to his coworkers?” she asked. “Did you question them?”

“His  _ coworkers _ had fled the scene as well.” Woo ran his hand over his face. “They were nowhere to be found.”

“Vidia wasn’t there?” Scott asked. “She, Alexander, Oscar, and William were supposed to be setting up cameras.”

“None of my agents could find them,” Woo informed.

Scott cast a glance to the woman beside him. 

“Maybe…” He looked at Woo, so he wouldn’t think he was getting answers and ideas. “Maybe they saw the And and the Wasp and ran away? I didn’t have time to check my phone before I was caught. They might’ve texted me letting me know?”

“I’ll have a specialist look through it,” Woo said. 

Scott tensed up. As did the woman beside him. 

“I’m so sorry to ask this right now,” the woman started, “but where’s your restroom?”

“I’ll show you on my way,” Woo said and stood, heading for the door. Then he stopped and pointed at Scott.  _ “You, _ don’t go anywhere.”

“Yes, sir,” the prisoner snorted.

The woman touched his arm gently and then headed out.

***

She closed the stall door and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She dialled a number quickly and waited for an answer. 

_ “Hello?” _

“Kurt! Quick, I need you to do something for me.”

_ “What would that be, Miss van Dyne?” _

“I need you to hack into Scott’s phone and change our texts to say things along the lines of ‘Where are you?’ ‘We made it outside, the Ant and the Wasp are in the building,’ and ‘Why are they putting you in a cop car?’” Then after a beat, she quickly added, “And change any mentions of his name to Curtis. And any mentions of any of the plans I need you to delete.”

_ “On it,” _ the Russian on the other end of the line said. There was the sound of rapidly-clicking keys in the background and hushed conversation. A few short moments later, the man came back,  _ “Done.” _

“Thank you so much, Kurt! You’re a lifesaver, literally.”

_ “No problem,” _ the man replied.  _ “Now please get Scott back. You are miserable without him.” _

“Shut up,” she said, but smiled anyway. “We’ll see you guys soon.”

“See you soon.”

The call ended and she took a deep breath and stepped out of the stall.

***

Scott sighed and drummed his fingers on the metal tabletop. He couldn’t try to break out. He couldn’t shut the camera down and he couldn’t contact any of the rest of the team to do it for him. 

Plus, he didn’t have anything to unlock the cuffs. So, long story short, he’s stuck.

The door opened and Hope re-entered the room.

“Look, I’m sorry–”

“I called Kurt,” she whispered.

“You did?”

She nodded. “He’s taking care of the texts, changing any mention of your name to Curtis as well as deleting any mentions of the plans.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much. I love you.”

“I kind of need my boyfriend,” she whispered again. “Kurt’s whining, saying I’m miserable without you.”

“Awe,” the man cooed. “You  _ do _ miss me!”

“Shut up or I’ll leave you here and write a fake-death story about you.”

“Okay, okay,” the man chuckled. “I love you too.”

There was a knock on the door and Agent Woo re-entered the room. “They went through your phone,” he announced. “Everything checks out.”

“Oh thank god,” Scott groaned. 

“And that means?” Hope asked, taking on the accent once again. 

“That means his alibi checks out,” Woo groaned. “You’re free to go, Curtis.”

“Yes!” Scott cheered. “Thank  _ God! _ She  _ is _ looking out for me!”

“Who?”

“God.  _ God _ is looking out for me and she’s not let me down once yet.”

Hope rolled her eyes. “Just uncuff him. I’ll drive him back to his hotel.”

***

The rental car had just been put into park in the hotel parking lot when Scott unbuckled and leaned over, kissing Hope deeply.

“Those were the longest two days in my life,” he whined between kisses. “Thank you so much for getting me out of there.”

“I would’ve missed you too much,” the woman replied.

“I knew it,” he sighed.

They made out for a moment longer before the woman pulled away and removed her wig. “Get in the backseat,” she ordered.

The man did so, climbing between the front seats with little struggle and collapsed on the seat. Hope followed behind him a moment later once she’d gotten the makeup off her face. She got on her knees on the section of the seat beside him. She tugged his pants and underwear down...


	14. Bob, Ruth, and Carl

In Coral Gables, Florida, and man by the name of Robert “Bob” Lang was seated in his living room, eating breakfast before he had to go get changed for work. As he ate, he turned on the news to serve as a sort of white noise. When he finally looked at the screen, he froze and dropped his fork onto his plate, mouth hanging open. On the screen was a familiar face to him.

He had neither seen nor heard from the man in the image in years.

Scrambling to find his phone, he dialled up his daughter, Ruth. Pacing, he listened as it rang. He was muttering to himself.

_ “Hello?” _

He sighed, relieved when he heard the woman’s voice. “Ruthie, hi. It’s your dad.”

_ “Oh. What’s wrong?” _

“Turn on the news.”

_ “Why? What’s going on?” _

“Your brother is a wanted man.”

_ “Just turned on the TV,” _ the young woman on the phone said.  _ “Oh my god.” _

“I know,” Bob sighed. “What happened in these ten years? He goes off to college, gets a masters, gets that pretty girl Margaret, then disappears.”

_ “Dad, I don’t think he’s with Maggie anymore… Look.” _

The older man looked at the screen and sure enough, there was a photo of his son exiting a vehicle with a girl that was  _ not _ Margaret—er, Maggie.

_ “Have you tried calling him?” _ Ruth asked.

“Not since he never returned my calls six years ago,” her father replied. 

_ “I’ll try and get ahold of him and call you back.” _ Then she hung up.

***

“Who was that?” 

Ruth looked over at her husband Carl as she frantically dialled another number. “That was my dad. Something’s come up with my brother.”

“Your brother? The one who went off the grid?”

“Yeah, that’s the one—my  _ only _ sibling.” She groaned as no one answered, then redialled.

Someone finally answered.  _ “Who is it?” _

“Hi, is Scott Lang there?” Ruth asked kindly.

_ “I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is! You may have the wrong number.” _

“No, no, that can’t be right! This was his number last time we—Shit. He must’ve changed numbers before all this started.”

_ “Ma’am? Excuse me? Do you need help?” _

“No. Thank you. Sorry for bothering you.”

The blonde woman hung up and covered her face with her hands. “What happened to him?”

“What’s with the sudden need to get in touch with him?” Carl asked.

“Look at the news,” the blonde replied, calling her father again.

Carl turned to the news and watched, while also looking up reports and even Googling his brother-in-law’s name on his laptop.

“Oh Jesus… That’s him?” 

“Yeah,” Ruth nodded, looking at the laptop. “He moved to go to college and got his masters, then moved to New Jersey. I don’t know what happened after that, but from the looks of it… He’s in New York.”

“They have him listed as a suspect in a string of cons and robberies.”

“I can see that.”

***

“Okay, so you want to roll your eyes back, like this,” Hope demonstrated. “And then let your body slacken and become deadweight.” She let herself collapse and Scott caught her by her armpits. He helped her back up and she grinned and kissed him quickly.

“And that’s how you pretend to faint,” the man said to Kurt, Dave, and Luis. 

“That was terrifying,” Luis said. “Now  _ you _ do it, Scotty!”

“How about no.”

“Please! I wanna see you do it!”

“Why?”

“Hope does most of the acting,” the Latino man stated. “Let’s shake it up and have you do it.”

“On your very first job I was the one acting,” Scott replied. 

“Stop whining and pass out, babe,” Hope commanded.

“Jesus fucking—Okay,  _ fine!” _

He shook himself out and closed his eyes. “Please don’t drop me, Hope.”

“You really think that little of me?”

“Fuck you.”

“If you ask  _ nicely.” _

Scott did just as Hope had demonstrated and she caught him.

“Good job! Now we’ve gotta hold on on more lessons.”

“What do you mean?” Dave asked.

“We have to leave New York,” Scott explained, rubbing his hands together. He looked a little uncomfortable.

“Where are we going?” Kurt asked. “Why do we have to leave?”

“I think we should go to Florida,” Hope suggested. 

“Let’s talk about Florida in a moment,” Scott said quickly, pointing at Hope. He turned to the men again. “We have to leave because the feds have gotten involved.”

“Oh shit,” Luis exclaimed.  _ “That’s _ who took you? The FBI?”

“Yeah. How the fuck did you not know?”

“We were too worried about  _ getting you out,” _ Dave explained.

“Right. Okay, back to Florida.” Scott took a deep breath and started begging and pleading.  _ “Please _ don’t send us to Coral Gables.  _ Anywhere _ but Coral Gables!”

“Why can’t we go to Coral Gables?” Luis asked.

Scott glanced from one person to the other. Then he finally sighed. “Coral Gables is where I grew up. My dad, sister, and brother-in-law all still live there as far as I know.”

“Why’s that such a bad th—Ooh. Oh, I get it. I understand. They’d recognise you.”

“Yeah!”

“But you have not seen them in… how long?” Kurt said.

“That’d be a good point, if I weren’t me. J haven’t changed that much in the twelve years that’ve passed.”

“That would be problem, yes. I can see that.”

“What do we do then?” Dave asked.

Everyone stayed silent for a moment. Scott shared a glance with Luis, remembering the words they had shared when the former had gotten drunk. Luis nodded.

“We’ll need to lay low for a while,” Scott started. “We can buy a house in Miami.”

“Scott, we talked about this.” Hope’s time took on a certain anxiety.

Scott turned to her. He spoke in a rushed whisper. “But we have to. We have to if we’re going to keep this up. Somewhere to settle down… To run back to if anything like this happens again… In case we, y’know, expand the family more…”

Hope looked down. Deep down, she knew he was right.

“We don’t have to buy a house,” she said after a moment. “My mom used to live in Miami, before she and my dad met in San Francisco, then moved back to Florida.”

“Wait, both of your families are in Florida?” Luis butted in. “This is going to be riskier than we thought!”

“Not really,” Hope shook her head. “I haven’t seen my parents since I was little. I ran away from home when I was thirteen.”

“How long ago was that?”

“2006.”

Luis did the math in this head. “You’re twenty-seven?”

“It’s not polite to guess a woman’s age, Mr. Alvarez,” Scott said in a pitched voice, sticking out his lower lip.

“And what about you, Mr. Lang?” Hope teased. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine!” Scott announced. “I turn thirty in April.”

“Enough talk about age,” Dave said. “What was it about your mom?”

“She has a home in Miami,” Hope explained. “She still owns it, but she and my father never go there.”

“How do you know that?” Luis asked.

“I’ve um… I’ve been keeping tabs on it, in case they ever decide to.”

Scott gave her a sympathetic look and touched her arm.

“Looks like we’re moving in,” the woman said.


	15. Dinner

“Welcome home.” Hope smiled softly as she pushed open the front door of the house. 

It smelled just how she remembered Janet. 

“We can discuss rooming situations in a bit,” Hope said. “But first, let's get the stuff set up.”

“Is there an attic?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. I’ll show you.”

She led the men up the stairs and down a hallway until they reached just underneath a fold-up ladder in the ceiling. She stood on her tiptoes and tugged on the string dangling from the ceiling and down came the ladder. She looked over at her boyfriend and motioned for him to go on up.

Once they were all in, they got a good look around, then started to set their equipment (laptop, etc.) up. 

Scott glanced over at Hope and gave her a small smile before going over. He wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered, “I know you don’t want to settle down right now, but it’s a good backup plan.”

She nodded and leaned into him. “I know,” she whispered back. “Hey, you mentioned expanding, back in New York.”

“Yeah… why?”

“Are you wanting to have kids?”

The man stayed silent for a moment, in deep thought, then shrugged. “Maybe. Yeah. But only if you want to as well.”

She looked at him. He never agrees to anything that would affect unless she’s on board with it as well. That’s one reason why she loved him.

“I mean, I know you’re completely invested in this thing we’re doing, and you don’t want any distractions, so I understand if you don’t.”

Luis seemed to materialise between the couple, and he said, “I love this thing you two have going on: Completely devoted to each other and taking the other’s wants and needs into consideration despite being criminal masterminds who could turn on one another at any moment. More couples should take notes.”

“Go away, Luis!” both Hope and Scott shouted. “We’re having a  _ private _ conversation.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

***

“We got in contact with the suspects’ families,” Paxton explained to Maggie. “Since we’re now teamed up with the FBI, that means we have to actually travel down there to question them.”

“Oh,” the woman said. “Where do you have to go?”

“Florida. But, don’t worry. I talked to Fury and you and Cassie can come with me. He even offered to pay to get Cassie into Disney World or Universal Studios. Whichever she wants.”

“Are you sure about this?” Maggie asked. “You’re chasing criminals. Does Cassie really have to get involved like this?”

“Taking you two with me will keep me sane, knowing you’re okay.”

Maggie sighed. “Okay. Okay, fine.”

The woman stood up and looked at her fiancé once more. “She’d prefer Universal, by the way. They have a whole two areas for Harry Potter.”

“Noted,” Paxton said.

“We’ll start packing.”

“Sounds good,” Paxton agreed.

***

“Ah man, I haven’t been to Florida since… Ever, actually. The closest I’ve been was through FaceTime when Scott introduced me to his family.”

Paxton looked over at Maggie as they got off the plane. “You seem to have good memories with that guy,” he said.

“He was a good guy,” Maggie sighed. “But he changed during the last few days we were together.”

“I’m sorry, Mags.”

“It’s okay. I guess some people just aren’t who they say they are.”

“Hey… Since you know his family, would you mind coming with me? We can take Cass to the theme park right after.”

“Okay.”

***

Scott woke up with Hope curled into his side. He smiled softly at her sleeping figure. She was beautiful.

He moved his arm from under his head and felt around on the bedside table for his phone. He pulled up the news to see if there had been any updates on anything relating to himself or Hope. Right now, his identity was just a speculation. But Hope’s had been confirmed. Supposing the news had spread to Florida, they would have to be careful. More careful than ever.

He didn’t see any news of them having spread out here except for a bad quality photo of himself and Hope exiting a vehicle. They were okay for now.

“What’re you doing?”

He looked down at Hope. She was awake now and looking at him tiredly. 

“Just checking the news. We’re mostly in the clear,” he replied, setting his phone back on the table. He grazed his fingers down her back, skipping over the clasp of her bra. 

“What do you mean ‘mostly’?”

“They just have one picture and it’s not even that good of a quality photo.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Her eyes closed again and she settled her cheek on his stomach. His fingers trailed back up and across her shoulders.

“We’ll have to go buy groceries,” she mumbled against the fabric of his shirt.

“Yeah, I noticed. We can go today, if you want?”

“That’d be best.” She nodded.

“Okay.”

“Hey, Hope?” he spoke again after a moment.

She turned her head to look up at him. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

***

It was evening when they arrived. 

“Remind me why we’re going to Miami?” Carl turned the steering wheel and pulled into a hotel parking lot. He spotted his father-in-law’s Chevy a few parking spots away.

The blonde woman in the passenger seat looked at her husband. “Even though there’s this news about Scott, you and Dad and I all agreed we’d drive down for a trip to the museum. New art exhibit. It was before all this came up. And we’d already paid in advance and they don’t accept refunds.”

“Right.”

They pulled into an empty spot and got out, getting their bags out of the back.

Heading inside the hotel, Ruth spotted her father and hurried over. 

“Ruthie!” Bob exclaimed, pulling his oldest child in for a hug. “I’m glad we’re still doing this despite everything.”

“Me too, Dad,” the woman replied.

“Speaking of, have you found his new number yet?”

Ruth shook her head. “Carl tried to help, too. We couldn’t find anything.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m sorry about your son, sir,” Carl spoke up. 

“It’s not your fault he keeps making bad decisions,” the older man shook his head. 

They headed up to their rooms to get settled in before going out for dinner. They were meeting Officer Paxton of the SFPD. 

***

“We’re going out for dinner,” Scott announced. “It was Hope’s idea. There’s this one nice place—not formal, don’t worry—about twenty minutes from here according to Google Maps.”

“So, you guys in?” Hope asked, walking out of the bedroom just as she finished pulling her shirt on. They didn’t have to worry about disguises here. Remember? The news hadn’t spread this far quite yet.

“You’re talking about  _ food _ here,” Luis said. “Of course we’re in!”

“Great, let’s go!” Scott grinned. 

And that’s how they found themselves at a table for six, waiting for their meals to arrive.

Luis was at the head of the table while Scott and Hope were to his left, facing the main door, and Kurt and Dave to his right, backs to the door. 

They were all talking to each other, sharing experiences they were comfortable and legally allowed to speak of. Scott let out a laugh at something Luis shared and leaned against Hope, to support himself.

***

“Why are we in Miami?” Maggie asked. “Universal is in  _ Orlando, _ remember?”

“The Langs contacted me and said they’ll be in Miami for a trip and to meet them at some restaurant. Besides, there’s a bus that goes to Orlando from Miami and it arrives in three hours. We’ll go back to the hotel and get some clothes for tomorrow, stay at a hotel in Orlando tonight, then in the morning we’ll already be there. We have time.”

“I’m trusting you!” Maggie held onto her daughter’s hand tightly.

“Right up here, sir,” Paxton said to the Uber driver.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. My app works too,” the driver said.

Paxton looked kind of shocked to be spoken to in such a manner, and looked at Maggie. She looked equally shocked. They pulled up to the curb and the three got out. The driver waved at them then left.

“Can we make this quick, please,” Maggie begged. “We promised Cass.”

“I know, we will,” her fiancé replied. “Come on.”

They headed inside. The usher at the desk greeted them kindly and led them to a table where three people were already seated. It was two six-person tables away from one where five people (four male, one female) were talking and laughing.

“You must be James Paxton!” the oldest man at the table stood and greeted the officer with a handshake.

“I take it you’re Bob,” the man replied.

“You’d be right.”

“Thank you for inviting us out, Mr. Lang.”

“No problem at all.”

“Maggie?” the seared blonde woman stood suddenly and stepped around her husband’s seat to embrace the other blonde female tightly.

“Ruth? Oh my god, it’s been years!” The two immediately sat down and started talking, the eight year old that had been with Maggie and Paxton taking the seat beside her mother.

“Oh, who’s this?” Bob asked, looking down at the girl.

“This is Cassandra,” Maggie introduced her daughter. 

“She yours?” Carl asked.

“Yeah… And, um…” The woman looked at Bob. “She’s your granddaughter.”


	16. A Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow @TheLeeAwards on Twitter

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” Scott said. He got up from the table, and started toward the bathrooms.

He caught only a quick glance at the group two tables over, but didn’t pay any mind to them. 

Luis quickly turned to Hope and rested his chin in his hand. “So…” he drawled out.

“So... what?” the woman replied.

“Have you and Scotty talked about getting hitched?”

Hope choked on her water. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m just curious. You two obviously love each other, so why don’t you… put a ring on it, in the wise words of Beyoncé.”

“I, um…” The woman glanced from Luis to the other two men, of whom weren’t paying much attention. “I don’t know. I guess…” She sighed. “I’m just scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared, but I guess it’s understandable too.”

Meanwhile at the other table…

“Okay, I know it’s rude to stare,” Ruth said. “But that woman over there, with those men, looks so familiar.”

The others looked over and Paxton’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Is that–”

“That looks like Scott’s friend from the TV,” Bob cut him off.

“Hope van Dyne.”

“Mommy, it’s the man from your wallet!” Cassie exclaimed, pointing to a man walking toward Hope’s table.

“Oh my god,” Maggie muttered.

***

Scott has just sat down beside Hope once again when he heard someone say his name. He and the other four at the table looked over and saw a tall man coming their way. He didn’t look happy.

That was when the con artist got a good look at the man’s table companions. “Oh shit,” he whispered. He turned to Hope and took her hands in his own. “I love you so much. I’ll meet up with you later.”

“What do you–” Hope started, but it was too late.

Scott jumped up and took off running, weaving his way through waiters and customers, even jumping onto an empty table just to get around it, heading for the back emergency exit.

“Hey! Stop!” the angry-looking man shouted, then took off after him.

One of the two blonde women that had been at his table sighed. “Watch Cassie,” she said, then headed for the front doors of the restaurant.

***

Scott looked back once, seeing if he was being followed. That was a bad idea, actually, because he didn’t notice someone coming out in front of him. They crashed into each other and fell to the ground.

“Scott?”

The man looked up and came face to face with Margaret Rae, his ex-girlfriend from college.

“Maggie?”

There was a shout from around the back of the building. Scott scrambled to his feet and grabbed Maggie’s arm and heaved her up and ran, not once letting go.

They only stopped once they were in a store, blending in with the customers.

“What are we doing?” Maggie hissed. “What are  _ you _ doing?”

The man looked at her and smiled just slightly. “Hello, stranger. I’m clothes shopping.”

“In the  _ women's _ section?” The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Where have you been? Why haven’t you called? Why’d you leave?”

“I don’t know,” the man sighed. “I went to Jersey for about a month, then went to San Francisco. Took a brief trip to New York with some friends. We even saw Stark Tower. It was cool.”

“Scott.” The woman’s voice sounded sad. “Are you in trouble? Paxton seems to think you’re the one behind the robberies.”

“No, I just don't like people yelling at me and chasing me.” He pulled a shirt off the rack and held it up. “Think this would fit me?”

She took it from him, putting it back on the rack. “Why did you leave? Back in college.”

The man fell silent. 

“Scott, it hurt me when you left. And a while after, I found out something.”

“What?” He was looking at her now. 

“Scott, I got pregnant. With  _ your _ baby.”

“We have a kid?”

_ “I _ have a daughter. She just happens to have some of  _ your _ DNA.”

He seemed desperate, starting to plead. “Mags, please don’t be mad! I- I just started to have some- some financial troubles. I’m sorry I disappeared!”

“We could’ve gotten more jobs! Sold some stuff!”

“I got scared, Maggie.”

“I was  _ pregnant! _ And we were talking about moving in together!”

“I  _ didn’t know _ you were pregnant!”

They had an audience now. 

Scott looked furious. He grabbed Maggie’s arm and led her back outside. He took a few breaths to calm himself down. Once calm, he looked at her again. “Can I meet her?”

“You’re an asshole!”

“If she needs anything, anything at all, I can get it.”

“How?”

“Please don’t call the feds, or the police.”

He was about to admit to it all. She was surprised. All she had to do was mention their kid?

“If you want my signature or a pinky-swear or to shake on it, I’ll do it,” he said. “Meeting her and you not calling law enforcement are my only conditions.”

So he wasn’t going to confess… She stayed silent for a moment, then sighed and nodded, holding her hand out. “Fine. But the moment you put either of us in any sort of trouble or danger, you’re out of her life forever.”

“Deal.” He took her hand and they shook on it.

After a moment, the woman sighed. “I’ll have to lie to my fiancé for my ex-boyfriend,” she grumbled.

“You’re engaged to a cop?” the con exclaimed.

“Why do you think he was coming after you?”

“Fuck, you’re right. But we should’ve established that before we made the deal! How am I gonna see our daughter?”

“I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

“We can meet up somewhere? My girlfriend, some friends, and I are momentarily relocating here.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah…”

“We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“No shit.”

“I’ll talk to Paxton,” she said after a moment. “We’re going to Universal tomorrow so Cassie can have some fun instead of sitting around while he’s busy working trying to get to  _ you and your girlfriend.” _

“Awe. You’re taking her to Universal Studios? That’s fun.” Then he gasped and grabbed her arms excitedly. “I can meet you there!”

“It costs a lot of money to get in…”

“It’ll be no trouble for me. Seriously, you have  _ no _ idea.”

“You’re the Ant, aren’t you?”

A coy smirk played on his lips. “How’d you guess?”

An ugly brown van pulled up beside them and the side door flew open. A woman and a man were sitting in the back. 

“Come on!” the woman shouted at Scott, leaning out the door. “You can catch up later!” She stuck her hand out. 

Scott looked from her to Maggie. “I’ll meet you there tomorrow!” he said, then took the van-woman’s hand and she pulled him inside. The other man in the back pulled the door shut after waving to a confused Maggie, then the van got out of there fast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and desperately wanted.


	17. Universal Studios

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy St. Valentine’s Day, everyone! sending you all love and joy

“I still can’t believe they got away,” Paxton was grumbling. His head was pressed against the window of the bus. Maggie was in the aisle seat and Cassie was between them. 

“I’m telling you, it was probably a mistake,” Maggie sighed. “You might’ve had the wrong person.”

“Then why’d the guy run?” 

“There’s this thing called Fight or Flight Reaction,” Maggie said slowly, as though she were talking to a child. 

“Mommy, was it the man?” Cassie asked, looking up at her mom. 

Maggie looked down at her and nodded and winked when Paxton wasn’t looking.

Cassie’s face lit up and she grinned, swinging her legs happily.

The bus pulled up beside the Orlando hotel and the three got off with a few tourists. 

***

“Where are you going?” 

Scott froze. He turned around slowly and smiled nervously at a pissed off-looking Hope. 

“Out.”

“Out where? Who was that woman yesterday? Why are you meeting her today?”

“Look, I’ll explain everything when I get back,” Scott promised. “It’s something important.”

“We promised to not keep secrets from each other!”

“And I’m promising to answer all your questions when I get home!”

“Just take me with you,” Hope begged. “Please.”

The man looked to the door, then back to his girlfriend, then sighed. He nodded. “Okay, okay. Come on.”

***

Maggie stood in line at the entrance of the park with Cassie, hand on her shoulder. 

“Can we go to Hogwarts?” Cassie asked. “Can we get stuff from the gift shops?”

“If we have enough, I’ll buy you whatever you want,” Maggie smiled down at her. “But everything is expensive.”

“Why isn’t Paxton here? Why did he go to the hotel with us but not come?” 

Maggie sighed. “He only came down with us so we wouldn’t be lonely or get lost. He’s working.”

“Maggie!” someone called out from behind her.

“Your  _ ex? _ She’s  _ your ex?” _ That sounded like the woman in the van yesterday.

The blonde and her daughter turned and saw Scott hurrying toward them, Hope a few paces behind.

“Scott.” 

“Mommy, that’s the man in your wallet,” Cassie said.

“Awe,” Scott teased, once he reached the duo. “You still have my picture?”

“I keep forgetting to burn it,” the woman deadpanned.

“Oh shit uh, Maggie. This is Hope,” Scott introduced.

“Watch your language! There’s kids here!” Maggie scolded.

“What language? I said ‘Oh’.”

“I can’t stand you,” the woman sighed, then held her hand out to the dark haired woman beside the man. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hope.”

Hope gave the woman’s hand a firm shake. “You as well, Maggie.”

“So you’re the girlfriend.”

“You’re the ex.” She took notice of the child present with them. “Who’s this?”

Scott beamed and crouched in front of the child. “Hey! You must be Cassie. Your mom told me about you. I’m Scott, your d–”

“That’s Scott, Cassie. He’s a friend from years ago.” Maggie shot the man a glare. 

Cassie smiled at the man. “How do you know my mom?”

“We met in college,” Scott replied, glancing up at Maggie. “We dated for a while.”

“Really?” Cassie gasped. “Why’d you stop?”

“Yeah, Scott? Why’d you stop?” Maggie asked, crossing her arms. 

“Can we not talk about that right now?” Scott sighed.

“You’re the one that brought up you two dating,” Hope noted.

“Shut up.”

“Did you meet my dad?” the little girl asked, eyes wide. “I ask, but Mommy won’t tell me.”

The man glanced at Maggie again. She shook her head.

“I know him,” Scott said simply.

“Really?”

“We gotta move up, sweetie,” Maggie said to her daughter.

“How are you paying to get in?” Scott asked, standing up and taking Hope’s hand.

“Paxton’s boss offered to pay for admission. We have to pay for everything else we buy.”

“Let us pay for it.”

Hope jerked on his hand and pulled him down and hissed in his ear.  _ “What _ are you  _ doing?  _ That’s  _ our _ money.”

He whispered back, “Cassie’s my  _ daughter, _ babe.  _ Please _ let me be a good dad.”

“She’s your–” The woman snuck a glance down at the child and sighed. “Okay, yeah. I see the resemblance.”

“Please.” He pouted.

“Okay, fine. But only for Cassie.”

“Hello?” Maggie cut in. “Are you serious? You don’t have to. Nicholas Fury already offered.”

“But we’re here, we won’t have to wait for confirmation.”

“Please, Maggie,” Hope said. “We insist.”

“Mommy,” Cassie whispered, tugging on her mom’s sleeve. “They’re trying to be  _ nice. _ Say yes.”

“Yes,” Scott said in an almost-mocking tone. “Say yes, Mags.”

“Jesus–  _ Okay, _ yes,” Maggie yelled.

***

The four entered the park, passes stored away in Maggie’s purse (hers and Cassie’s) and Scott’s pocket (his and Hope’s) so they wouldn’t get lost.

“So, where to first?” Scott asked, looking at the map. “There’s Jurassic Park on the way to Hogsmeade, or we can take the shortcut through Adventure Island and go to Diagon Alley then take Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade.”

Hope snorted. “I swear you’re, like, twelve.”

“Hey!” he whined. “Harry Potter is fun for all ages!”

“That’s true,” Cassie agreed. 

Scott grinned down at her. “Someone’s smart!” he said, and held out his hand for a high-five.

“Let’s go through the long way, go on some other rides as well,” Maggie suggested.

“Sounds like a plan,” Hope actually smiled.

***

While Cassie went on a dinosaur water ride in the Jurassic Park sector of the park, Scott, Hope, and Maggie found themselves at one of the bars. Scott offered to pay and neither woman argued. 

“Not too much,” Hope warned her boyfriend. “You’re a lightweight. Remember that hangover you had back at the hotel in San Fran?”

“Which hotel?” the man asked, taking a swig of his drink.

“The one where we didn’t stay in a suite.”

“Oh! The one where Luis and I talked about you and me.”

“I’m so confused,” Maggie cut in. “You stay in hotel suites? And who’s Luis?”

“We traveled a lot,” Hope explained. “And with our um…  _ jobs, _ we made enough to be able to afford suites.”

“Luis is a guy that works for us,” Scott added, answering Maggie’s second question. “He’s great. He wants to be a chef.”

“Mommy!”

The trio turned and saw Cassie running toward them, excited as ever. 

“It was so much fun! Let’s go on more!” the girl exclaimed.

“The Skull Island ride is coming up next,” Scott noted. “Just around that corner.”

***

They made it to Hogsmeade. Cassie gasped at the sight of the sign. 

“Want your picture taken?” Hope asked the little girl.

“Please!” the child begged. 

“Go on over,” Maggie said.

Scott snatched the woman’s phone away from her. “You go over, too.” 

“No.” The woman shook her head.

“He’s right,” Hope said. “Go over. Be in the picture.”

“But–”

“Just  _ go, _ Mags.” Scott gave her a look. “I swear we won’t run off with your phone and sell it like we did Sam’s.”

“She knows?” Hope whispered to him. 

“Fuck yeah she knows,” he replied. “She’s smart. Found out yesterday. I didn’t even have to say anything. She guessed.”

“Scott…”

“We made a deal.”

“Fine.”

“Okay you two,” Maggie sighed. “I’ll do it.”

***

“Oh my god, butterbeer!” Scott exclaimed. 

“Scott–”

He cut Maggie off. “It’s nonalcoholic.” He pointed at the sign attached to the cart.

She sighed.

Hope sent her a gentle smile.

“Can I get one, Mommy? Please!” Cassie begged her mother.

“I’ll cover it,” Scott offered.

“You’ve already paid so much, Scott,” Maggie frowned. 

“It’s fine.” The man shrugged. “No trouble at all.”

Hope sent him a look. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” the man said to her, lightly swatting at her arm. “We have plenty.”

“Is it stolen money?” Maggie asked in a hushed voice.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s coming directly from our bank account.”

She gave him a look similar to the one Hope had just given him.

“I’m not lying.” His tone was filled with honesty and genuineness.

“Okay, fine.” Maggie sighed.

***

They were taking a break, sitting on one of the benches. 

“So, um… How’d you two meet?” Maggie asked suddenly.

“Funny story,” Scott started. “We were on an episode of  _ Catfished—” _

“Screw you!” Hope shoved him. 

Scott suddenly whispered. “Hey, hey. Don’t talk about our sex life in front of the children.” Then he looked at Maggie and chuckled. “I have no idea what you can and can’t say in front of kids these days. I haven’t had a conversation with one in years.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Hope said quickly, patting his thigh. Then she, too, looked to Maggie. “You know what we do for a living, right? I’m guessing you do due to the fact you somehow found out who we are.”

“Yeah.” The blonde nodded.

“Well, we met on a dating app, under aliases. We were trying to con each other, turns out.”

“Oh. And why did you…?”

“We got to talking, realising how funny it was we were trying to rob the other. We decided to team up.”

“After a while,” Scott glanced at Hope and smiled brightly, taking her hand, “we fell for each other.”

“How long have you two been… doing this?” Maggie asked. 

“Almost three years?” Scott tried to do the math in his head.

“Wow,” Maggie sighed. “That’s a long time.” She cleared her throat and adjusted her seating position. “And you never once thought the other was just using you for another con?”

The couple both shook their heads. 

“No,” Scott said. “We have full trust in each other.”

“Oh.” 

Scott suddenly released Hope’s hand and stood, stretching. “Would you be cool with it if I take Cassie on another ride?” he asked Maggie. “I promise I won’t ditch her or sell her off or anything.”

“Um…” She looked over to her daughter, who was drinking from a glass bottle of “Giggle Water.”

“Let me spend time with her,” the man said. “Please.”

“Okay. Okay. Meet us back here right after, okay?” Maggie looked serious and anxious.

“I will. Promise.” He looked over at Cassie and grinned. 

“Hey, Cassie! Your mom and Hope are gonna hang out for a while. I’m gonna take you on the Forbidden Journey ride!”

“Yay!” the little girl exclaimed. 

She jumped up and took the man’s hand (you do  _ not _ want to get separated in a theme park) and they headed off.

“Does my dad know about me?” Cassie asked after a moment of silent walking.

“Oh. Um…” Lying to adults was so much easier than lying to kids. With adults, you don’t have that lingering feeling of guilt giving them a false hope, whereas that feeling is strong and painful when it comes to children. 

“He does,” is what he finally said. “He knows about you but doesn’t want to say anything in case your mom doesn’t want you to know who he is.” 

“How well do you know him?”

“I know him  _ very _ well.”

“Do  _ I _ know him?” 

“I just met you a few hours ago,” the man snorted. “I don’t know who you know.” He sighed. “Yes, you know him.”

“That helps me make the list shorter!” Cassie grinned.

They arrived at the lockers. 

“Pockets empty?” the man asked her.

She felt in her pockets and nodded. “Empty!”

“Okay, just one of us needs a locker, then.” He used his park pass to rent out a locker. 

“Hurry!” Cassie whined. “I wanna get on the ride!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Scott chuckled and memorised the locker number. He took Cassie’s hand again and they headed for the line.

***

“So…” Maggie sighed.

“So.” Hope looked at her. 

“You know he has commitment issues, right?” the blonde said. “We were together for three weeks, then he disappeared and never called, never got in contact.”

“I’m sorry,” the dark-haired woman said. “But he’s changed. I mean, look. He’s only known Cassie for a few hours and he’s already trying to be here for her.”

“He  _ has _ changed, you’re right. He’s a  _ criminal.” _

“Jesus– Why are you  _ like _ this?”

“I’m just pissed! He was an asshole!”

“Was. Keyword ‘was.’” Hope sighed again. “Trust me. He’s not like that anymore.”

Maggie looked at her, eyes worried. Then they changed to malice. 

“If he so much as lies,” the woman said, “I’m turning him in.”

“Oh I’m  _ counting _ on it.” Hope smirked at her. Then she hopped up. “I’m gonna go over to Honeydukes.” 

And she left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t forget to leave a comment!


	18. The Witness and the Officer Argue

Hope pulled off of him and collapsed on the bed beside him, both of them breathing heavily. 

“You seemed really happy today,” she said after a while, rubbing his chest gently. “Happier than I’ve seen you in a while.”

“I was just having fun today,” the man replied, playing with her hair. 

She peeked up at him. “Do you still want to try?” she asked. “Even though you have a kid already?”

“Of course I do!” he replied, sitting up. Hope propped herself up with her elbow and kept her gaze on him. “Hope, I  _ love _ you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have kids with you that are our own flesh and blood.”

She bit her lip and nodded a few times. “Okay.”

He leaned down and cupped her face in his hands. “Look at me.” 

She did so.

He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry if you feel like I betrayed you or tossed you aside. That was never my intention. I love you more than anything. More than this  _ job.” _

She reached up and placed her hand atop his, lacing their fingers together against her cheek. “I love you too,” she said softly. “I just… I get scared sometimes.”

“I do too, Hope. I get  _ so _ scared.” 

“I’m sorry,” the woman said after a moment. “I’m sorry about all of this.”

“You have  _ nothing _ to apologise for,” the man replied, running his fingers through her hair.

Her bangs were much longer now, able to be tied back in a ponytail with the rest of her hair without sticking up. 

“Can I ask you a question?” the man asked after a moment.

“Is this about me threatening Maggie?” Hope countered. “I didn’t mean to. She just… said some things and it pissed me off.”

“No, no,” Scott shook his head. “This isn’t about that. I understand, she can be a bit much at times. She just gets defensive.”

“How did you ever date her?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just have a thing for people who I know are stronger than me.”

“That explains Eddie Brock.”

“He and I had a  _ two-off.” _

“Doesn’t matter. Now, what do you want to ask me?”

“Oh, right. Um… Do you wanna get married?”

“Sorry?”

“We don’t have to have a wedding. We can just buy rings and not worry about paperwork and getting found out.”

“Scott, I…”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” the man said. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking over.”

“Just… Let me think about it.”

“Okay.”

She adjusted her position on the bed. “In the meantime.”

The man looked at her.

“Fuck me hard.”

Scott scrambled to get on top of her.

***

“Did you two have fun today?” Paxton asked, sitting on the hotel bed with his takeout box. 

“Yeah!” Cassie grinned. 

“What’d you do?”

“She went on a lot of rides and had a  _ ton _ of sugar,” Maggie replied. 

“I also met one of Mommy’s friends!” the child exclaimed. 

“Really?” Paxton looked to his fiancée. “Who?”

Maggie swallowed hard. “Just… Someone from college. He and some friends were going on a road trip and decided to go to the parks.”

“Is that so.”

“Yeah. They stayed with us for a while before they had to leave.”

“What are their names?”

“Are you seriously doing this right now?” Maggie asked. 

“Doing what?”

“You’re interrogating me!”

“I’m just asking–”

“Ever since all of this with Scott started, you’ve not trusted me!” Maggie yelled. 

“That’s not true,” Paxton retorted. 

“You know  _ damn well _ it’s true! When I bring up something I did in the day, you start asking questions and it sounds like you’re interrogating me!”

Cassie stayed silent during all this, unsure if she should say something or not.

“I’m just curious!” Paxton yelled. 

“I can’t believe you,” Maggie growled. She turned to her daughter. “Stay here, Cassie. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” her fiancée called after her as she headed for the door. 

“I’m calling my  _ friend.  _ I can’t stay with you tonight.”

***

Luis was eating a slice of pizza in the living room with Kurt and Dave when a cell phone rang. 

“Scotty! Your phone’s ringing!” the man called out. “Scotty!”

When he got no response, he sighed and stood up and started to look for the device. He found it in a jacket pocket and pressed “Accept Call.”

“Hello?” he spoke, sounding chipper once again. 

_ “Hello, who am I speaking to?” _ an agitated-sounding woman asked from the other end of the call. 

“This is X-Con securities,” Luis replied. “May I ask who is calling?”

_ “This is Maggie Rae,” _ the woman replied.  _ “I know for a fact X-Con isn’t real. Please tell me Scott didn’t give me a phoney number.” _

“Oh shit oh shit,” Luis muttered. “Just a moment.  _ ¡Déjame ir a buscarlo por ti!” _

He bolted in the direction of the room he had seen the couple hurry off to.

He knocked on the door of their bedroom rapidly. “Scotty! Phone!” Then he registered the moans and whines coming from the room. He turned away quickly and made his way back down the hall. He put the phone back to his ear and cleared his throat.

“Can you hold? He’s um…  _ busy…” _

_ “Oh my god,” _ the woman sighed.  _ “Can you get him to–” _

“Here he comes!” Luis exclaimed, seeing the bedroom door open and the couple exiting, the bed sheets wrapped around both of them. Luis held the phone out. “It’s for you,  _ amigo.” _

“Thanks,” Scott groaned. He held his sheet around his waist as Hope watched him, clutching her own at her chest.

“Hello?” the man said into the phone. “Who are you and how did you get this number?”

_ “You  _ gave _ it to me, dumbass.” _

“Maggie! Hi.” 

Hope rolled her eyes and leaned against him lightly. 

“What’s up?” he asked, lifting his elbow so Hope could get closer. 

_ “Cassie and I were wondering if we could stay with you and your…  _ colleagues _ tonight. I can’t be near Paxton right now—we had a fight—and I’m  _ not _ paying for a separate hotel room.” _

“Let me ask the others,” the man said. “Please hold.” He muted his side of the call and looked at Hope.

“What?” the woman asked, looking up at him. 

“Would it be okay if Maggie and Cassie come over? We can pick them up and blindfold them if you’re more comfortable that way.”

“Why’re they coming over?”

“They don’t want to be around  _ the officer _ right now.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“We can ignore them.” He moved his arm from around her and kissed her cheek softly, trailing down to her jaw and nipping her ear. “I’ll let you use the strap-on.”

“Fine.”

He kissed her deeply then returned to the phone. “We’re all in agreement. We’ll pick you up because of confidentiality reasons.”

_ “We’ll be waiting outside,” _ Maggie said.

“See you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t forget to leave a comment!


	19. Pizza

“Thank you so much for letting us stay,” Maggie said, holding her arms out so as to not bump into anything. 

“You were serious about the blindfolds?” Dave asked from where he stood, leaning against the wall.

“Hope felt safer that way,” Scott said. Once the door was shut, he removed Maggie’s blindfold and Hope removed Cassie’s.

As her vision adjusted to being back in the light, Maggie looked around the room. “Nice place,” she said. “So you two are settling– _ Who are they?” _ She pointed to the group of three men she did not recognise.

“Oh yeah,” Scott quickly gestured to each man in turn as he introduced them: “That’s Kurt, Luis, and Dave.”

“Oh… Okay.”

“Oh damn, Scott!” Dave exclaimed, getting a good look at the child among them. “Is that your–”

Scott made the “cut it out” gesture over his throat, which immediately shut the man up.

“Hey Cassie,” Hope said, actually smiling. “Why don’t I show you where you’ll be staying?”

“Okay!” the child said, and let Hope lead her down a hall.

“Now that she’s gone,” Dave said, “can we please discuss how she’s literally a girl child clone of Scott?”

“She is  _ not.”  _ Scott huffed.

“I look at her and all I see is you, Lang,” Maggie said.

Scott was silent for a moment, then groaned. “Fuck, you’re right.”

“I hate all of you,” he said after a beat.

“Love you too,” Hope sighed as she reentered the room. “Scott, I need to talk to you.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, furrowing his brows. 

“Just… come with me,” the woman said, and started up the stairs to their room. Scott looked at the others with wide eyes, then hurried after her.

“What’s wrong, Hope?” the man asked once they were in the bedroom and the door was closed.

“I got to thinking, while showing the kid around,” the woman started, crossing her arms over her chest. “We need to be careful while they’re here.”

“It’s just one night, babe.”

“I know.” She looked up at him, a glint in her eye. “But you know how we can get. We can barely hold ourselves together around the guys. And neither of us have any experience with children.”

“Well, Cassie’s staying downstairs, we’re up here.” He bobbed his head a few times, as though telling her to put two and two together.

She let out a breathy laugh and shook her head. “The way you think is amazing.”

“Is that a compliment?” the man asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up despite his confusion. “It sounded like both a compliment and an insult.”

“Take it the way you want to take it,” the woman said.

***

“Who wants dinner?” Luis called out. “I’m ordering more pizza.”

There was a grumble of replies and the man beamed and hurried to find a phone.

“How long have you all been working with Scott and Hope?” Maggie asked Kurt and Dave.

“Not long,” Kurt replied. 

“We started just a few weeks before the Stark Industries incident,” Dave added.

Maggie simply nodded her head and looked away. Cassie emerged from the hall and joined her mother on the couch. 

“Mommy,” the child said. Then she whispered. “Mr. Scott said he knows who my daddy is.”

Maggie’s heart stopped. 

“But he said he won’t tell me unless you’re okay with it,” her daughter added. 

“Oh,” Maggie sighed, relieved. “Okay.”

“What’s with you not wanting her to know?” Dave asked. “If I didn’t know who my dad was and I kept asking, my mom would tell me. And I’d tell my kid who their parent was if they didn’t know.”

Cassie looked up at her mom.

“Not right now,” the woman sighed. “She’s not… She’s not ready.”

_ “You’re _ not ready,” Luis said, joining the group.

“Mommy…” Cassie said, looking up at the woman still. 

Maggie looked around the room, then sighed. “Not… Not yet.”

“But Mommy!”

“No!”

Cassie pouted.

Luis sighed and headed for the bottom of the stairs and called up. “Yo Scotty! Hope! Pizza’s on its way!”

“We’ll be right down!” Hope’s voice replied.

“Hurry or we’ll eat it all!”

There was the sound of rushing footsteps and Scott came running down the stairs. He grabbed Luis’s shoulders. 

“If you do that, I’ll skin you alive,” he said. 

Cassie laughed loudly. 

“You wouldn’t do that, bro,” Luis shook his head with a coy smirk. “You need me!”

“Dammit, you’re right. We do.”

Luis grinned triumphantly.

Hope strode down the stairs and sighed. “Boys,” she scolded. “You’re both pretty.”

“Mr. Scott!” Cassie called out. “Mommy still won’t tell me.”

Scott looked at her and pouted deeply. “Awh. That sucks.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“Your mom’s right there,” the man pointed to the woman beside the girl. “She’d kill me if I did.”

Cassie pouted again.

Then there was a knock on the door.

“Pizza!” Luis exclaimed, then headed to the foyer.

“Scott, I need to talk to you,” Maggie said. “Now.”

“Oh… Okay,” the man’s smile disappeared. “We can talk in the guest room.”

He glanced back at Hope before following his ex-girlfriend down the hall.

Hope walked over and plopped down beside Cassie on the couch.

“Do you know who my dad is?” the girl asked her.

Hope glanced down at her before nodding. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I do. And I know that he loves you and really wants to tell you.”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” the eight year-old huffed. “Why doesn’t my mom want me to know?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s ridiculous. You’ll find out eventually, even if she doesn’t tell you. He’s bound to slip up.”

“How do you know?” The girl’s eyes widened more.

“Because he’s that much of a dumbass.”

“Language!” Kurt exclaimed. “She is child!”

“What language? I said dumb!” Hope let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know how to talk to kids!”

“It is obvious,” the Russian man said.

“I like your tattoos!” Cassie pointed at his hands.

“Oh…” Kurt seemed flustered. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” the girl beamed.

“Guys,” Luis said from behind them. “Are we gonna eat or let the pizzas get cold?”

“Cass, why don’t you go get your mom and Scott?” Hope said.

“Okay!” She slid off the couch and hurried down the hall.

As she reached the room the two had gone in, she overheard part of their conversation.

“She’s  _ bound _ to find out on her own,” Scott was saying. 

“I’m just not  _ ready,” _ Maggie said. “If you and your friends don’t stop  _ hinting _ at it, she’ll know that her dad… is  _ you.” _

“What?” Cassie pushed the door open and stared at the adults.

The two turned quickly and saw her. 

After a moment of awkward silence, Scott groaned loudly and covered his face in his hands. “FUCK!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t forget to leave a comment!


	20. Tell Me Where They Live./Okay.

“How did she find out?” Hope yelled.

“We were just talking and suddenly she was there!” Scott yelled back. 

“What am I supposed to do now?” Maggie asked, her voice raised as well. 

The three had gone back to the room Maggie and Scott had been discussing in, talking over what had just happened with Cassie.

“She knows I’m her dad now,” Scott said. “You can let me explain and be a part of her life now.”

“Not. A. Chance,” Maggie growled. “First thing in the morning, I’m taking her and we’re leaving. And I’m turning you in.”

“What? No!” Scott started to panic. “You said–”

“I said she can’t find out until I’m ready. I wasn’t ready!”

“That’s  _ bullshit!”  _ Hope exclaimed. “Just because she found out that he’s her father, you’re turning us in? You’re insane!”

“That’s what  _ I _ keep saying!” Scott said, then faked a gasp. Then he spoke quickly and in a mocking tone. “It’s almost as though you’re  _ insane _ and we’re  _ right, _ Margaret. Cassie  _ needed _ to  _ know _ so curiosity wouldn’t get the BEST OF HER.”

“Fuck you, Scott Lang!” Maggie shouted. 

Scott opened his mouth to reply but both women shut him up:

“Not the time, Scott.”

“Right, sorry,” the man replied. 

Maggie took a few breaths to calm herself then finally said, “Cassie and I are leaving in the morning. We’re going back to Paxton. We’re telling him the truth.”

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room. 

Once she was gone, Hope spoke. 

“She’s a fucking bitch.”

Scott snorted. “Tell me about it.”

***

The front door slammed shut behind Maggie and Cassie. The girl had been reluctant to leave, wanting to stay with her father and get to know him more, but her mother forced her to leave. 

The mother and daughter made their way to the curb and Maggie tried to get an Uber for them. 

“Mags,” Scott called out to her from the doorway. “Just let me drive you.”

“No,” Maggie refused. “No. We’re fine.”

“Come on, Maggie.”

“Scott, I said no.”

“You’re overreacting.”

She turned around suddenly. “I’m overreacting?  _ I– _ am  _ over _ reacting?”

“You are.”

“You kinda are, Mommy,” Cassie said, wincing slightly. 

“We’re fine. You don’t need to give us a ride,” Maggie said to Scott, ignoring Cassie’s response.

The Uber pulled up. 

***

“She’s gonna turn us in,” Luis was fretting. “She’s gonna turn us in and we’ll get arrested and I might get deported or killed. Kurt will definitely get killed. Dave… I don’t know what’ll happen to him. It’s impossible to tell these days.  _ No puedo ser arrestado. ¡Ninguno de nosotros puede ser arrestado! ¿Qué va a pasar si nos arrestan?” _

“Luis!” Scott yelled at him.  _ “Cállate, hombre. Cálmate antes de darte un ataque al corazón.” _

“Since when do you speak Spanish?” Dave asked as Luis tried to calm himself down.

Scott shrugged. “I may be dumb but that doesn’t mean I’m not smart.”

“What are we going to do?” Kurt asked. “She tell on us, we in trouble.”

“We go on the run again?” Scott suggested.

“Scott…” Hope said. “You were the one who didn’t want to go on the run.”

“But we don’t have a choice now!” he said. “We’ll have to.”

“When do we leave?” Luis asked.

Hope stayed silent for a moment, then sighed. “Pack your things. We’ll leave in one hour.”

***

Maggie got the bag out of the back of the Uber and thanked the driver. Cassie was still upset. 

When they reached the room, Paxton was relieved to see them but confused at Cassie’s anger. 

“What happened?” he asked Maggie while Cassie was in the bathroom. 

“She found out who her dad is,” the woman replied. 

“How?”

Maggie was silent for a moment. Then she replied quietly, “She overheard us talking…”

“You were talking with Scott Lang?” Paxton shouted. “Why?”

“He’s who we were staying with! I was talking with his girlfriend the other day and she said he’s changed! I trusted her and I shouldn’t. They’re both terrible people.”

“I don’t want Cassie anywhere near either of them, Maggie. Ever.”

“I don’t either! But she likes him.”

“I don’t care! He’s a criminal!”

“I’m aware of that! I hate him just as much as you, but I have a better reason.”

“What do we do about Cassie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know where Scott and his team live?”

Maggie nodded slowly, then faster. “Yeah. I do, I do.”

“Tell me, Maggie.”

“I-”

“Please. To protect Cassie, and everyone they may con again.”

Maggie stayed silent, staring at the floor.

Paxton cautiously took her arms and made her look at him. “Please.”

She took in a shaky breath and replied. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t forget to comment!


	21. A Text Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first thing’s first: idk how children today text. i don’t text my younger cousins despite them having phones so... oops.

They have been on the run again for about a month. 

Scott and Hope continued to argue, and were both kind of sex deprived since the five of them opted for sleeping in the van in case there were any wanted posters put out for them. It would prevent them from being able to stay at a hotel. 

They were now at a gas station, filling up the tank and getting snacks.

Scott and Luis were getting the snacks inside the station and were checking out when they saw that the television behind the counter was set to the news. Scott started to get nervous. Then his nervous turned to terror when an image of himself and Hope appeared on the screen. 

“Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne—also known as the Ant and the Wasp—are on the run from the police and FBI. If anyone has any information, please contact the authorities,” the news anchor said.

The cashier looked up and raised an eyebrow at the two on the other side of the counter. 

“Hey,” he said. “You look familiar…”

“No. No I don’t!” Scott stuttered. 

“Yeah,” the other man said. “You do. Are you an actor?”

“No.”

“You sure? Because you look like Josh from  _ Clueless.” _

“I get that a lot, but no. I’m not.”

“Oh, ‘scuse me,” Luis cut in. “We also got gas. Pump three.”

“Alrighty,” the cashier said. “Just let me get more change.”

“That,” Scott said a little too loudly, “won’t be necessary. Keep the change.”

“Okay, but I have to get it anyway, for the next customers.”

“Shit,” Scott muttered.

The cashier turned and bent down to find coin rolls. When he stood back up, he caught sight of the TV and pointed. 

“Hey, isn’t that…” He turned and saw the men were gone, along with their bags. All that was left was a twenty dollar bill on the counter and a sheet of insect-themed stickers on the floor. 

“Dammit,” he said. He caught sight of them out the door getting in a van and speeding off. He grabbed the phone and started dialling. 

***

“We’ve got ‘em!” Agent Woo entered the office. “They were spotted at a gas station in Norman, Oklahoma.”

“Are they still there?” Johnny Storm asked. 

“They’re on the move again,” Paxton said as he entered the office.

Johnny stood and made his way over to the two, Greer Grant right behind him. 

“Did they con anyone?” the woman asked. 

“No. They left a slip of stickers, however,” Paxton explained. 

“The local police aren't trying to track them?” Johnny asked. 

“They called us,” Woo replied. “They’re looking for any traces of the van.”

“Did the witness catch the plates?” Greer asked. 

“I’m afraid not,” Woo sighed. 

“But they described the vehicle? Does it match the description from the Rogers and Wilson cons? And Florida?”

Paxton and Woo looked at each other, then Greer and Johnny, and nodded. 

“It does,” Paxton said.

“Looks like we’re going to Oklahoma,” Johnny sighed, closing his file.

***

Cassie looked up from the back seat of the rental car she and her mom and Paxton were in. They were busy talking. 

She leaned down and picked her backpack up from the floor and unzipped the front pocket and pulled something out: An iPhone. Mr. Scott—er… her  _ dad— _ had sneaked it into the bag before she and her mom had left his and Miss Hope’s house. He had made sure to turn off the sound and vibrations on it so her mom and Paxton wouldn’t find out about it. There were five phone numbers in the contacts: Her dad, Miss Hope, and their three friends. 

Her dad had texted her once they had gotten back to the hotel room, apologising for not telling her sooner and giving her an explanation on everything. She had to hide in the bathroom to be able to text him back.

She unlocked the phone and glanced up once again to make sure her mom and Paxton were still distracted, then brought up the Messages app and opened the one conversation listed. 

“Are you okay?” she typed, then hit send.

She didn’t get a response, or even a mark labelling it as ‘Read.’ 

She waited a moment longer, then put the phone away. 

“Are we there yet?” she asked Paxton.

The man shook his head. “Not yet, sweetie. Almost, but not yet.”

“Are you going to try to find my daddy?” she asked. 

He glanced back at her in the rear view mirror. “Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I am. I just want him to be safe.”

Cassie was silent for a moment, looked at her mom, then back to Paxton, then out the window. “I hope you don’t catch him.”


	22. Close-Call

“Have they moved states again?” Woo asked Greer. The woman was typing away on her laptop. 

“Not yet,” she replied. “But they were spotted on a traffic cam in Oklahoma City.”

“We’re almost there,” Johnny stated. “I just informed the state police they’re in their capital.”

“Good job, Johnny,” Woo sighed in relief.

“What if we don’t catch them?” the officer asked. 

“We will catch them,” the agent replied. 

“How can you be so sure? Every attempt  _ we _ have made to get them, they escape.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if we  _ don’t _ catch them.”

***

Dave pulled the van to the side of the road. He got out and walked the perimeter of the vehicle before groaning loudly.

“What’s wrong?” Scott called through the back window. 

“Tire’s blown,” Dave called back. “Everyone out.”

“What the fuck,” Luis sighed. 

“You heard the man,” Hope said. “Everyone move your asses.”

The group exited the vehicle. 

***

“Someone claims to have seen them on the side of the interstate,” Greer called out. 

The officers and agent had swapped out the jet for a car once they had arrived in the state. 

“On it,” Woo said and flipped on the siren and sped up the vehicle. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

Greer held up her phone and spoke into it. “Did you hear all that, Johnny?”

_ “Yes, ma’am. I’m right behind you,” _ the man’s voice came through. He was in a similar black car behind Woo and Greer’s. 

“Wait. Wait! I see the van!” Woo shouted. 

He pulled off to the side of the road, a few feet away from the van. He put the vehicle in park and turned to Greer. 

“Stay here. I’ll signal to you if I need backup,” he said, then got out.

He made his way cautiously toward the van. 

“Come on out!” he called. “You have nowhere to run, Lang!”

A hand poked out of the side door of the van. 

“Keep your hands up,” Woo yelled, “and step out of the vehicle. All of you!”

A dark haired man stepped out of the van, back turned toward the agent.

“I said all of you!” the agent shouted.

“It’s just me!” the man from the van called back. “I pulled over and asked them if they needed help! There was five of ‘em! I changed their tire for ‘em and they were gone! They stole my car!”

Woo’s eyes widened. “Turn around, sir.”

The man did, hands still raised.

“Dammit,” Woo muttered. It was true. “Sir, come with me. We have some questions for you.”

***

“That was  _ such _ a close one!” Hope announced from the very back row of the minivan. 

“Great thinking, Dave,” Scott called to the driver from where he was tucked into Hope’s side.

Luis was already asleep, slumped over in the row in front of the couple. Kurt was in the passenger seat beside Dave.

“I better get extra pay for this!” Dave shouted.

“Yeah yeah,” Scott sighed. “You will. Don’t worry.” 

He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned it on. Four missed calls and ten unread texts.

“Who’s that?” Hope asked.

He looked up at her. “Cassie.”

“Why’s she in as ‘Peanut’?” 

“It suits her.” He shrugged.

“Why does she have your number? You need to throw that phone away so they can’t track us!” Hope’s eyes were wide.

“They won't. This phone is under an alias.”

“But–”

“We’re safe.” He set the phone aside and cupped her face, giving her lips a quick peck. “I promise.”

***

Cassie sat in the hotel room bathroom, staring at the screen of the phone. He had left her on ‘Read.’ At least he read the texts, right?

“Cass? Is everything okay in there?” 

She looked up at the sound of her mom’s voice.

“Yes, Mommy!” she called back. “Everything’s okay! My stomach hurts.”

“Oh,” her Mom said. “Do you need any medicine? How bad does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt bad. Just a little.”

She quickly shut off the phone and set it quietly on the floor and took off her sweater and wrapped it around the device. She flushed the toilet, to help with her ploy, and went to the sink.

“I’m almost done!” she called out.

She washed her hands and dried them on one of the complimentary fluffy white towels laying on the sink. She picked up her bunched-up sweater, careful as to not drop the phone, and opened the door. 

“You okay, sweetie?” her mom asked, looking down at her. 

“I’m okay, Mommy,” the girl replied, hugging her sweater-bundle closer to her chest.

She hurried over to the bed she would be occupying and climbed up onto it, setting her sweater aside. 

She’ll text him again later.


	23. Three Numbers

“A vehicle of that description was just spotted exiting the interstate, entering the city,” Johnny spoke over the phone.

_ “Shit,” _ Greer said.  _ “Woo and I just passed that turnoff.” _

“I’ll go ahead and go,” Johnny offered. “You two can turn around and try to keep up.”

_ “You got it,” _ Woo said.  _ “Good luck.” _

Johnny hung up the call and turned the vehicle off the main road and down the strip to enter the city.

***

“Think we’re being followed?” Luis asked. “Some of these cars look the exact same as some that were behind us back there.”

“They’re not following us,” Scott sighed. “Some of them happen to be going in the same direction as us.”

“Right,” Luis said. “Sorry. I’m just paranoid.”

“Yeah. We noticed,” Dave muttered.

***

Johnny pressed ‘dial’ on Greer’s number. 

“I’ve got visual on the vehicle!” he announced before the woman could even announce that she had answered the call.

_ “Then what are you doing?” _ Woo shouted. _ “Turn on the damn sirens and pull them over!”  _

“Of course, sir,” Johnny said. He hung up and turned on the siren inside the vehicle and sped up the car. He weaved around the others on the road.

He came up right behind the targeted minivan and flashed his lights, the sirens and police lights still going.

***

Dave looked in the rear view and swore aloud. 

“It’s the cops!” he shouted. 

Scott and Hope both turned around. 

“Fuck!” Scott yelled. He ducked down and pulled Hope with him.

Dave slammed on the gas and started weaving around people, narrowly avoiding pedestrians and running so many red lights.

Luis was gripping the handlebar on the ceiling and crying. “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die! I can’t die! I still haven’t been to Disney World!”

***

Woo and Greer turned down and spotted the minivan speeding through a light. Woo turned on the lights and siren and took off after them, falling in line behind Johnny.

Johnny swerved around the minivan and the runaway vehicle slammed to a stop. Johnny’s car stopped and Woo threw his and Greer’s into park and all three got out.

***

Everyone in the minivan jerked forward when Dave slammed on the brake as the police car cut him off. He started to turn the wheel but couldn’t move as another vehicle came up and blocked him. 

“Scott,” Dave said warily. “Hope? Either of you have a plan on how to get out of this?”

The couple in the backseat looked at each other. 

“I got nothing,” Scott admitted. 

“Me neither…” Hope sighed. 

“Step out of the vehicle!” an angry voice from outside yelled.

“Scott? Hope?” 

The three in the front were looking at the couple.

They both sighed. 

“Just do what the agents say,” Hope said. 

Scott quickly pulled out his phone and brought up a text conversation and typed out four numbers. If the little girl on the receiving end thought hard enough, she’ll understand what they meant.

“Scott… Come on,” Hope said, nudging his side with her elbow.

The agent outside was still shouting at them, getting more and more agitated.

He hit send and set the phone down on the floor and stomped on it, the screen cracking. He kept stamping until it was just tiny glass bits and the inside electrical pieces. 

He let out a deep breath. 

“Let’s go.”

***

Cassie was laying on the bed, watching TV while Paxton was on a call and her mom was in the bathroom. 

She kept sneaking the phone, checking for anything from her dad. 

So far she had nothing. 

“Wait. Repeat that?” Paxton said into the phone. “You got them?”

Cassie quickly pulled the phone out. There was a single message from the contact name “Daddy.”

She opened the conversation quickly. 

**Daddy:** 911


	24. Jennifer, Hank, and Janet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the boys get a name

Paxton turned and froze. “Cassie? Where’d you get that phone?”

Cassie gasped and looked up. “Umm…”

He stepped toward her. “Give it to me. Let me see it.”

She shook her head and held it close. Her brain was trying to figure out what the message meant that her dad had sent her. ‘911.’ What had it meant?

“Cass, sweetheart, come on.”

She shook her head again. 

“What’s going on?” her mom asked from the bathroom doorway. 

“Did you get Cassie a phone?” Paxton asked. 

“No… Why?”

“She has one. She won’t tell me where she got it.”

“Cassie, give Paxton the phone,” her mom said to her sternly. 

“But–” Her mom cut her off. 

“Cassandra Eleanor. Now.”

She hesitated, then held it out. It had timed out and the screen shut off. 

“Unlock it, Cassie,” Paxton said.

“You just said to give it to you,” Cassie sassed.

“Cassandra!” her mom scolded harshly. 

The girl pouted and unlocked the phone. 

Paxton looked at it for one moment, then sighed and looked at her mom. “She’s been contacting Scott.”

Then it clicked: 911…  _ They’ve been caught.  _

***

Jennifer Walters entered the interrogation room, file in hand. She sighed when she saw the man handcuffed to the table.

“Hello, Mr. Lang,” she said.

“Ms. Walters,” the man smirked.

Jennifer Walters. One of the best lawyers anyone could ask for. She never loses a case.  _ Never. _ Even if she’s  _ sick _ she doesn’t lose.

“What can I do for you today?” Scott asked as Jennifer took the seat across from him.

“Is this a joke to you?” the lawyer asked. 

Scott snorted and shrugged. “No. But it’s how I cope.”

The woman sighed and ran her hands through her black hair that was tied back in a ponytail. She muttered to herself, “This is going to be hard.”

“Look, just keep me and my friends out of jail,” Scott said. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

“You’re just going to pay the lawyer fees,” the woman said. “There’s talk they won’t offer bail.”

The man slouched in his chair. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Help me help you,” the woman said. “Just tell me everything I need to know.”

She noticed him cast a glance to the door. He sighed. 

“Fine.”

***

Hope sat uncomfortably in the cell. She tried to keep a strong demeanour, but she was sure her eyes were giving away her nervous.

“Hope van Dyne,” an officer came up to the cell door.

She glanced up from the stone floor.

“You have visitors.”

She screwed up her face. “Who?”

“Your parents.”

“My parents?”

The officer opened the door and walked in, cuffing the woman’s hands in front of her. The uniformed man led her out of the cell and down the long hallway.

They entered the bullpen and there by the officer’s desk stood an older couple. The woman of the couple gasped when she saw who was cuffed, being led by the officer. 

“Hope?” the woman said softly. “Is that really you?”

“Mom?” Hope choked out. It was really her!

The woman threw her arms around her daughter, pulling her close. Hope tried to hug back, but couldn’t due to the handcuffs, so all she really  _ could _ do was bring her arms up against her mother’s chest.

“What did you do, Hope?” the man with her mother asked—her father.

“Dad, I’m so sorry,” Hope said, pulling away from her mom. “I’m so  _ so _ sorry.”

“Where have you  _ been?” _ the man went on.

“Um…” She glanced down. “With my boyfriend…”

“You’ve been  _ missing _ for  _ seven years, _ Hope!” the man yelled.

Hope rolled her eyes and shifted her weight onto her other foot. “I haven’t been  _ missing, _ Hank,” she said, annoyance and boredom in her tone. “No one ever  _ found _ me is all.”

Hank looked like he was about to explode. Hope merely smirked. 

“We’ve been travelling for two years now,” she said. “Before that, it was just me.” She turned to her mom. “Thanks for not selling your Miami house.”

“You’re the reason why the police called me?” the older woman asked. 

“I’m sorry about that, but we needed a place to stay.”

“Who is we?” Hank shouted.

Everyone looked at the family.

Hope took a few steps back. She looked at her parents dead in the eye. 

“The Ant, the Wasp, and the Wombats,” she said.


	25. The Trial: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to apologise for inaccuracies. I’m honestly just going off of TV shows and movies I watch. And the Ant-Man comic where Jennifer is Scott’s lawyer.

Day one of trial. The cons and crew were with their lawyers.

Jennifer Walters - Scott Lang

Anne Weying - Hope van Dyne

Matt Murdock - Luis Alvarez

Frank “Foggy” Nelson - Kurt 

Janice Lincoln - Dave

The lawyers each gave their opening statements.

The States of California, New Jersey, and New York vs. Alvarez, van Dyne, Stepanov, Lang, and Jefferson. 

Scott held tight onto Hope’s hand under the table. She squeezed back gently. 

Kurt looked around the room and noticed who was back behind the gate: Darren Cross (he had seen him on the news a few years ago), Sonny Burch (saw him on the news as well), Tony and Pepper Stark, the teenaged intern from New York, Steve Rogers (News), and Sam Wilson. There were a lot of others but he couldn’t put names to their faces. They must have been from while he, Dave, and Luis were in jail. Scott and Hope’s first cons.

The prosecution lawyer stood and announced the first witness: “The prosecution calls Clinton Barton to the stand.”

A blonde man with a few BandAids on his face—one right across the bridge of his nose—and hands stood and made his way up to the witness stand. 

“Shit,” Scott muttered. 

“What?” Luis asked. “Is he one of your firsts?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh damn, bro!”

“If the defence would please quiet down!” the judge shouted.

Scott and Luis fell silent.

There was the sound of a door opening and everyone turned their attention to the back of the courtroom. Paxton walked in and held the door open for a red-headed woman. Maggie followed close behind. She made eye contact with Scott. 

“Where’s Cassie?” the man mouthed silently.

The woman huffed and mouthed back: “With the agent.”

“Fuck,” Scott whispered.

“Attention! Attention!” the judge shouted, beating the gavel.

“Damn, that looks like fun,” Luis muttered, turning back around.

The bailiff ran through the oath with Mr. Barton. Hand on the Bible and everything. 

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” he recited. Clint nodded. 

“Yes sir, I do.”

Once seated in the chair, the lawyer for the prosecution stood and made his way up to the stand.

“Mr. Barton, please tell me,” the lawyer said, “was it the Ant or the Wasp who you came in contact with?”

“Ant, sir,” the blond replied. 

“Do you see the Ant in this room today?”

“Umm…” The man looked around the room, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. That’s him. Right there.” He pointed right at Scott. “But he had red hair when I last saw him.”

“Let the jury know Mr. Barton just identified  _ Mr. Lang _ as the culprit,” the lawyer said.

Scott shrunk in on himself. 

“Mr. Barton,” the prosecution continued. “Mr. Lang wasn’t working with anyone when he conned you, was he?”

“No sir,” Clint shook his head.

“Could you recount for us the events with Mr. Lang that led up to you losing everything in your bank account for us, please?”

Clint was silent for a moment, then he started talking. 

“I was looking for a dog sitter, for my dog Lucky. My friend Kate and I do a weekend archery competition every year and my usual sitter wasn’t able to do it that year. So I followed Kate’s advice and put out an ad. I got a call from him, claiming to be someone named Arthur. I left for the weekend. Came home on Monday evening and thanked him. Next thing I know, everything valuable was gone from my house and my bank account was drained. Nothing was left. Nothing except… Well…”

“This?” The lawyer held out a photo in a clear paper-sleeve. 

“Yeah. That. All over my house.”

The lawyer turned around and held up the evidence pack, as well as a matching one. “Evidence exhibits A and B, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” Photographs of walls and a table covered in ant stickers.

“I was honestly afraid he was going to say you stole his dog,” Luis whispered to Scott, leaning over. 

“I thought about it,” Scott admitted. “But I couldn’t do that. I may be a con artist but I’m not evil.”

“True, true, true, true,” Luis spoke quickly.

The lawyer returned to his desk. “No further questions.”

Jennifer stood and made her way to Clint. “Mr. Barton,” she said. “You said Mr. Lang was a red-head when you met him, correct?”

The prosecution slammed his hands on his desk and stood. “Objection! Relevance? We already established this!”

The judge looked to Jennifer for answers. 

“I’m just reestablishing the point before bringing up my question, Your Honour,” Jennifer said. “It’s relevant to my question.”

“Objection overruled! Mr. Barton, answer the question.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the witness said after a moment’s pause. “He was a red-head.”

“Were there any other… Aspects that you remember about him that you do not see on Mr. Lang today?” Jennifer cast a glance over to her client. 

“Um… Well…” Clint looked over at the man. “I can’t really tell from here, but he had his full right arm covered in tattoos—like a sleeve—and his left arm… He had um… Let me think. It’s been a few years. Um… He had… Oh! He had like, an interstate sign on his shoulder and an old fashioned egg beater on his forearm!”

Jennifer turned to her client and motioned for him to remove his suit jacket and roll up his shirt sleeves. The man obeyed, Hope teaching over to help undo the buttons on the shirt’s cuffs. Once his sleeves were rolled up, he held up his arms. 

“No tattoos,” Jennifer said. 

“He also had a scar! A big scar!” Clint said. 

“Where was this scar?”

“On the back of his… Right leg. It was summer so he was wearing shorts when I first and last saw him.”

“Mr. Lang,” Jennifer said. “Please stand and roll up your pants leg.”

Scott complied. 

“No scar.”

“Maybe it was the left?” Clint said quickly. 

Scott rolled up the left leg and showed. 

“Oh.”

“No further questions.”

“Prosecution?” the judge asked. 

“No further questions.”

“You may step down, Mr. Barton.”


	26. The Trial: Part Two

“The defence calls Ruthie McCoy to the stand,” Jennifer announced.

Once the blonde woman was seated, Jennifer stood and walked up to the stand. 

“Mrs. McCoy,” she said. “How would you describe your and Mr. Lang’s relationship?”

Ruth swallowed and wet her lips. Then she spoke. 

“My brother and I were close when we were little,” she started. “We stayed close all through high school, until about his junior year. He started closing himself off. Whenever I asked him what was wrong… He would change the subject. When he went off to college, moving to San Francisco, he cut off all contact.”

“What do you mean?”

“He- He changed numbers, never tried to call or text or email or even send us letters. I tried calling the number he left home with, a few weeks ago, and someone else answered.” She shook her head and looked down. 

“Did you ever see Mr. Lang again before today?” Jennifer asked.

“Once,” Ruth replied. “I flew myself out to California to hand deliver an invitation for my wedding to my brother. He hadn’t been in his dorm so I left the invitation there. He showed up to the wedding with his girlfriend Maggie. He was acting the same as he had before his junior year. He laughed, made jokes—even offered to give a toast during the reception. After that, I never saw him again.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McCoy. No further questions.”

“Prosecution,” the judge said.

The prosecution lawyer stood and asked one question: “Did Mr. Lang give any indication or sign he would start leading this life?” 

Ruth shook her head. “No, sir. None.”

“No further questions.”

***

“Prosecution calls Mr. Robert Lang to the stand!”

“What the fuck? Wait–  _ Dad?!” _ Scott moved to stand, but Jennifer reached over and tugged him back down. 

“They got to him before we could,” the woman explained. “I’m  _ so _ sorry.”

“Did Mr. Lang show any strange behaviour before all this started?” the prosecution lawyer asked Bob. 

“At first I hadn’t noticed anything different about him,” Scott’s father replied. “Then, around the time he was in college and stopped calling me, I knew something was wrong.”

“Did you have any theories or ideas about what may have been going on with your son?”

“I started talking about him with Ruthie. I came to the conclusion he didn’t like the family anymore and wanted to disown us. What other explanation could there have been?”

“Do you recall ever meeting Miss van Dyne?”

“I’ve never seen her before in my life! Last I heard from Scott, he was dating that girl Margaret.”

“According to a confession she had with her parents, she and Mr. Lang have been working together since 2018.”

“Objection!” Jennifer shouted. “Where’s the question? And the defence hasn’t been informed of this alleged conversation!”

“Miss Walters!” the judge scolded. “There was no mention of your client! Only Miss Weying’s!”

Anne Weying stood. “But she’s right, Your Honour. We had no information on this conversation.”

“Mr. Ross, have you any documentation to stand your claims upon?”

The lawyer—Ross—nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do. It must not have ended up in evidence.”

The bailiff took the sheet and handed it to the judge. Anne and Jennifer looked at each other warily, then at the other defence lawyers. 

“Did any of you see it?” Anne asked. 

“No, sorry,” Murdock said with a shrug. 

“You can’t see anything anyway,” Foggy Nelson said. 

“Fuck off, Foggy.”

“By god! It’s from her father!” 

Everyone looked at the judge upon the sudden outburst. He looked up and swallowed. 

“Enter Evidence number 174,” he said. “Ross, continue.”

“I have no further questions, Honour.”

Jennifer stood and made her way to the witness. 

“Mr. Lang,” she said. “Do you have any reason to believe your son would commit these crimes?”

“Objection!” Ross accused. “Leading the witness!”

“I wasn’t leading! I was asking for his reasoning!”

“I’ll allow it. I’m curious,” the judge said. “Answer the question, Mr. Lang.”

Bob looked warily from the judge to Jennifer, then from Jennifer to Ross, then back to Jennifer.

“I mean, I guess… I just–”

“Out with it, Mr. Lang,” the judge ordered.

“My son has disgraced this family! He’s a criminal!”

“What has led you to believe that, rather than this trial?” Jennifer asked, eyebrows raising.

“He loved us! He loved his sister, he loved his mother! After she died, he changed! He was around the house less. He started drinking.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. When did she die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“When Ruthie was in her junior year.”

“So Scott would have been in his freshman year?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever stop to think that his drinking and fewer home appearances were because he was growing up? He  _ was _ starting high school.”

“I- I… I never thought of that.”

“Backtracking to my initial question: Do you really believe your son is capable of doing something like this?”

“He’s a smart kid. Got a masters in electrical engineering. And he was always fixing those computers at his schools. Even helped me with mine when we first got one.”

“One more thing: Do you think your son could regret what he did–if found guilty–and become the person he was before?”

The man stayed silent, not saying anything. 

Jennifer glanced up at the judge. “No further questions.” As she walked back to the desk, she looked at Ross. “Your witness.”

Ross looked through the files on his desk and sighed. “No further questions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont forget to comment!


	27. The Trial: Part Three

“The defence calls Carl McCoy to the stand!”

The man made his way to the stand, agreed to the oath, and then it all set into motion.

“How close were you to your brother-in-law?” Jennifer asked the man. 

“We weren’t really all that close,” Carl admitted. “I only met the guy twice.”

“Did you try to contact him at all?”

“I only really tried after Ruth saw the news and tried to call him.” He picked at a splinter in the wood of the stand. “I tried to find him on the Yellow Pages Website. No luck.”

“From what you’ve heard and know about Mr. Lang,” Jennifer gestured to the man in question, “do you believe he is capable of anything as drastic as what he is on trial for?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Carl said. “I mean, he seems like a smart guy but I don’t think anyone is capable of doing this  _ this long _ without getting caught.”

“Thank you, Mr. McCoy. No further questions.”

“Mr. Ross?” the judge raised her eyebrows. 

“No questions, Your Honour.”

***

“The Prosecution calls Sharon Carter to the stand.”

“Sharon?” Hope looked over quickly and saw a blonde woman in a three-piece suit making her way up. “Fuck fuck fuck… I’m gonna get locked up.”

“Wow, wow. What’s wrong?” Scott asked, taking Hope’s face in his hands. 

“She’s one of my firsts, Scott. She’s the reason I went to New Jersey.”

“Well fucking hell.”

Anne paced slowly in front of the stand. “Miss Carter, how did you come in contact with Miss van Dyne.”

“I um… I was getting back into dating after my last boyfriend broke up with me because he was more attracted to my Aunt Peggy.” The blonde woman on the stand brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I met a woman on a dating app going by the name Nadia Shellstrop. She was really nice, but after we met for dinner, she excused herself to go to the bathroom… I never saw her again.” 

“Did she contact you at all after that?”

“All I got was a text saying, ‘I’m sorry about this, but thanks for the money.’ There was a bee emoji after it as a signature, I think. After I read it I was contacted by my bank, telling me I made a withdrawal too big for them to allow. They couldn’t get me my income back.”

“Thank you for sharing.” Anne turned and gave Ross a smug look. “Your witness.”

Ross stood and straightened his tie before approaching the stand. 

“Miss Carter,” he said. “Do you remember much of what the woman looked like?”

“Average height. Around 100 pounds. Bobbed jet-black hair. She looked washed out. Brown eyes.”

Scott leaned over and whispered to Hope, “Contacts too. Smart.”

“Anything else?” Ross asked. 

“She didn’t have any freckles, but a beauty mark on the… left side,” Sharon said. “Left cheek. And she had a tattoo of flowers on her right wrist.”

“Are you positive about all this?”

“Positive. I never forget any details. Photographic memory.”

“He just did himself in, huh?” Luis muttered. 

“Did you meet this woman any other times?”

“No,” Sharon shook her head. “And nothing I described was removed or changed at all during our date.”

“I see… No further questions.”

***

“We’re outnumbered in terms of witnesses,” Foggy said. 

“No kidding,” Dave sassed. “What the hell do we do?”

“I have an idea.” Scott looked up from the floor. “I need a phone and I need to find Maggie.”

“What the hell? No! You’re not allowed to–” Jennifer cut off when Scott dashed off, her phone in his hand.

“Mr. Lang!” she shouted after him. “Mr. Lang!” 

Hope took off after the man. Jennifer and Anne swore and bolted after their clients.

Scott stopped around a corner and spotted Maggie. “Mags! Maggie! I need to talk to you!”

“Scott! We’re not supposed to–”

“I need you and Cassie to be witnesses for us.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What’s going on?” Hope asked once she came up beside Scott. 

“Maggie, please. Please.” Scott was pleading. 

“I’m not signing off on Cassie vouching for you two!” Maggie yelled. 

“Oh. Okay,” Hope muttered and stepped away. 

“Maggie, please. If you don’t I’ll just text her and forge your signature on the paperwork. You know she’ll want to do this.”

“Don’t make decisions for my daughter, Scott! You don’t even know her!” the blonde woman screamed, pointing an accusing finger at him. 

Scott was fuming. If this were a cartoon, steam was about to burst from his ears. “She’s my daughter too! And I’ve talked to her. I  _ do _ know her! She’s told me everything I need to know about her! She’s going to want to do this!”

“Fuck you, Scott. Fuck. You.” Maggie turned on her heel and stormed away.

“What are you going to do?” Hope asked once the woman was gone. 

“I just texted Cassie,” Scott replied. “She’s going to ask her.”

“Let’s hope this works.”

“It will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t forget to comment!


	28. Getting a New Witness

“Mommy!”

Maggie hugged the girl tightly. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“I need to ask you something very very  _ very _ important, Mommy!”

“What’s that, sweetie?” Maggie asked, heart sinking in worry.

“Is Daddy a bad man? The people on the TV say he’s bad.”

_ Dammit, _ Maggie thought.  _ Should’ve guessed she would ask  _ something _ about him.  _

“Your dad just gets confused sometimes. He made some very bad mistakes, honey.”

“I want to help him,” the child said defiantly. “Let me help Daddy!”

“You can help him from here.”

“No! I want to help him  _ there.” _

“Cassie, no.”

“Yes! Let me go!”

“I said no!”

“But Daddy needs help! He told me he’ll need help!”

“When did he tell you that?”

“Just a little bit ago.”

“Show me.”

Cassie’s eyes widened and she stepped back. “Why?”

“I said show me.”

“And I asked why!”

“Just show me, Cassie.”

“He said he’s scared he’s going to get taken away and he might get safe if I help! He wants to be a good man, Mommy! Him and Miss Hope want to be good.”

“Honey, I–” Maggie cut off when her phone went off. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. “What the hell?” 

Several notifications from her banking app flew in one at a time in quick succession. 

$100 deposited into your account.

$340 deposited into your account.

$620 deposited into your account.

$1,750 deposited into your account.

“What’s going on?” 

Maggie glanced over the top of her screen at her daughter.

“Daddy said he was going to try to help us, too,” the little girl said.

***

“And… Done!” Scott muttered to himself. He quickly exited the app, deleted it from the phone, and turned to Hope. 

“Quick,” he said to her. “Make it look like we were about to fuck but got caught.”

Hope cupped his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. Scott’s hands came up to grasp her arms and he pressed her against the wall. 

“Hey! This is a courthouse! Not some night club!”

The couple sprang apart, genuinely startled. 

“Act properly!”

Scott bit his lip and looked toward the voice and saw the judge. 

“Sorry, Your Honour,” he said. “Won’t happen again.”

The judge huffed and headed off.

Hope stepped up to her boyfriend and smiled slightly. “Well, it worked,” she said, reaching up and gently brushing at his lips with her thumb. “You have lipstick on you and your shirt’s wrinkly now.”

“Thanks, baby.” 

“Let’s get back.”

“Okay.”

Then they headed off hand in hand. “Wait! Hold on, one more thing to get rid of.” Scott stopped Hope and quickly unlocked the phone again. He went to the Messaging app and deleted a conversation. “Okay, done.”

“What was it?” Hope asked. 

“Just getting us a new witness.”

***

“I know what to do, Mommy! I don’t have to have just  _ your _ permission! I can have  _ Daddy’s _ permission.”

“What? That can’t be possible,” Maggie shook her head. 

“It is,” Cassie said. “Daddy told me and I looked it up.”

“Oh my god,” Maggie said and covered her face in her hands. “Fine.”

“Really!?” Cassie’s face lit up. 

“Yes, really.”

Cassie hugged the woman tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

_ I sure hope I won’t regret this, _ Maggie thought as she hugged her daughter back.  _ Or maybe I already do? Something about this doesn’t feel right. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: What Cassie and Scott told Maggie about getting a child as a witness is not true at all. The child's primary parent (in this case, Maggie) would have to fill out the paperwork themself. Scott would not be able to fill out the paperwork for Cassie since she is not under his care.


	29. The Trial: Part Four

“We have a surprise witness, Your Honour,” Matt Murdock spoke, standing. “She is a witness for all five members of the defence, but mostly Miss Walters’s client.”

“Call her to the stand, then,” the judge said. 

“The defence calls Cassandra Rae to the stand.”

Luis, Kurt, and Dave looked at the couple to their right, catching the smirk on Scott’s face.

There was a noise from the back of the court room and everyone turned to watch as a young, dark haired girl in a pinkish-purple dress and black ballet flats making her way to the gate. Someone in the front row stood and opened it for her. She made her way to the bailiff and he said the oath to her and explained it in a way she could understand and she accepted. He helped her up to the witness seat. 

The girl looked at the prosecution table, then over at the defence. She saw her father and smiled and waved. 

“Hi, Daddy!”

Scott smiled widely and waved back slightly. “Hey, Peanut.”

“Mr. Lang,” the judge said, “shut up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cassie giggled a little, then stopped when the judge cleared her throat.

Matt made his way up to the stand and stood there for a moment before stepping to the side a few times and whispered to the judge: 

“We were wondering if all five of us could question her, since she has had interaction with all of the clients.”

The judge thought it over for a moment, then nodded.

“Miss Rae will be questioned by all five from the Defence, due to her affiliation with all of the clients,” she said.

The questioning from Matt started.

Meanwhile at the back of the courtroom, Paxton looked at Maggie, wide-eyed. 

“Why is she up there?” he asked.  _ “How _ is she up there?”

“I signed the papers for her to be a witness,” Maggie admitted. “She really wanted to do it, she wanted to help Scott.”

“And you let her?”

“I didn’t have a choice! It was either I fill it out or she and Scott band together and forge my signature. Or he’d sign it for her.”

“He legally can’t do that,” Paxton said. “1) He’s not her legal guardian, she’s not under his care. And 2) He’s on trial so he wouldn’t be able to do that anyway.”

“Wait, seriously?” Maggie asked, turning sharply toward her fianc é.

“Yes, seriously.”

“So they lied to me. They  _ lied _ to me so Cassie could testify!”

“You already filled out the paperwork, honey. It’s too late to do anything.”

Maggie looked back up at the stand and watched and listened as Cassie answered questions being thrown at her.

“Mr. Lang is your father, correct?” Jennifer Walters asked as she replaced Matt in front of the child.

“Yeah!” the little girl replied.

“Can you point him out for me?”

The girl pointed to the man seated beside Hope. “Right there! We said hi when I got up here.”

“Did he ever do anything… bad when you were around him and his friends over there?”

“No. I mean, he and Miss Hope did some adult things upstairs and he gave me a phone without telling Mommy. She doesn’t want me to be around him but I like him. I like my dad a lot! He’s a nice man. He hasn’t done anything wrong in a while.”

“I see.” Jennifer glanced toward the other defence lawyers. She looked back at the little girl. 

“So he never took anything from anyone or threatened to hurt anyone?”

“He only did as a joke with his friend Mr. Luis. Mr. Luis said he would eat all of the pizza if Daddy and Miss Hope didn’t come downstairs fast enough.”

“You’re sure it was a joke?”

“Uh huh! ‘Cause right after, Mr. Luis said that he wouldn’t and that he needs him and Daddy said, ‘Dammit you’re right.’”

A few gasps from the back of the courtroom set everyone off. 

“She’s eight!” someone shouted. “She shouldn’t be using that language!”

“Teaching a child that kind of language should wind him up in prison immediately!” another yelled. 

“Tough crowd,” Scott snorted. 

“Stop saying these things about my Daddy!” Cassie screamed over the ruckus. “He never was around kids before me!”

Everyone quieted down. 

“So she heard us say  _ that,” _ Hope listed her head. 

“And it’s kind of obvious,” Dave interjected. 

“Cassie, thank you for answering my questions,” Jennifer said kindly. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Really?” Cassie asked excitedly.

“Yes, really.”

The child looked over at her dad, and he gave her a big smile and a thumbs up.

***

“Hope van Dyne, please approach the bench.”

“Wait, what?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...


	30. The Trial: Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just recently met a fan of this this fic on twitter and now we’re best friends. hi sweetie!

“Hope?” Scott looked over at his girlfriend. She looked terrified. 

“Scott, I–”

_ “Miss van Dyne,” _ the judge said sternly. “Approach the witness bench.”

Scott held onto Hope’s hand until she slipped away, approaching the bench. She smoothed down her black and yellow striped dress, her heels clicking against the floor.

She took the oath, then walked up and sat in the witness seat.

She fidgeted with her fingers.

Ross glanced at Anne Weying and smirked. He stood and stalked up to stand in front of Hope. 

“Miss van Dyne,” he said. “How long have you been on your own?”

“I’m not exactly on my own,” she said. “I have Scott and the guys.”

“Allow me to rephrase: How long have you been out of your parents’ care?”

“Since I was thirteen.”

“That’s awful young, don’t you agree?”

“It was my choice,” Hope said, sounding defensive. “I wanted to be on my own.”

“Is there any reasoning to this? It is reported you ran away.”

“I did run away,” Hope sighed. “I wanted to do it. I was tired, okay? I was tired of the same routine, the same old thing. My parents wouldn’t let me help them with their work and I wanted to! I love science! But they said no. So I ran away, to be myself and do what I wanted.”

“How did you manage to go this long without anyone recognising you?”

“You have to be strategic. Avoid cameras and news vans at all costs. You also can’t take any selfies or photos of yourself.”

“What about the dating profiles you set up?”

“I don’t have any dating profiles, sir. You must be mistaken. I have a boyfriend and he’s right over there.” She nodded her head toward Scott. “And before you make any assumptions: No, we’d never cheat on each other. We’re very open with each other and our friends about our relationship.  _ Very _ open.” She smirked and looked up at the judge beside her. “The judge can vouch for that, too.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ross said, voice shaky. “How did you and Mr. Lang meet?”

“We met online under aliases—identity protection and all that—two years ago,” she replied. “We agreed to go on a date.”

“What happened on this date?” 

“We met at a restaurant and had a laugh because, well, I looked nothing like my profile picture and he had forgotten to put his contacts in and was back to brown hair.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Throughout our time texting, he had dyed his hair blonde because of a dumb dare from friends. By the time our date arrived, the dye had mostly worn off.”

“So you two—You two didn’t try to con each other?”

“No, sir. We don’t do that.”

Ross started at her for a moment, then glanced at the judge. “No further questions.”

Hope smiled politely as Ross took his seat and Anne stood and made her way over. 

The lawyer spoke. 

“Miss van Dyne, when your parents came to see you at the police station, did you or did you not have a conversation with them about your arrest?”

“I did.”

“And what did you tell them before you were taken back to holding?”

“‘I’m sorry about that but we needed a place to stay,’” the woman replied.

“And after that?” Anne asked, looking up from the file in her hand.

“I can’t remember exactly. It’s been a strange few days.”

“I can imagine.” The lawyer looked back down at the file. “In this statement from Doctor Pym, it says that you admitted to them that you and your friends over there are, in fact, the Ant, the Wasp, and a group called the Wombats.”

“I was just telling them what they wanted to hear, ma’am. People are so convinced that we’re criminals, why not let them continue thinking that? The only crime I can think of that I’ve committed is trespassing on private property but it was in a time of desperation back when I was eighteen. I apologised to the family when they found me in their garage and they dropped all charges they were going to file against me.”

“How did you and your friends end up in a stolen vehicle?”

“We were driving,” Hope started, the perfect lie formulating in her brain as she continued to speak, “and this group in the car pulled off onto the curb and Luis told Dave we should pull over as well and see if they needed any help. The driver of the vehicle had gotten out and started struggling with one of the tires on it–Luis explained that to us later, he was in the back and looking out the rear. Dave pulled our car over and went to ask the driver if he needed any help. He had a gun pulled on him suddenly and all of us were forced out of our vehicle. They made us get in the stolen vehicle and told us to drive, and if the police started following us, Dave was to not stop or they’ll find us and kill us all. That’s why Dave never stopped the car until we were cut off.”

The original driver of the stolen car stood abruptly in the back of the courthouse. “She’s lying! I saw their faces! She’s lying!”

“Sit down!” the judge simply shouted back. “Miss Weying, continue.”

“What were you doing in Oklahoma, Miss van Dyne?”

“We were on a road trip across the country, starting in San Francisco–where we all actually live–and zig-zagging all over. We made a stop in Florida, where we stayed in my mom’s old house. I knew where the spare key was. She never moved it in case anyone needed to get in. Then we headed north-west.”

“What is your relationship with Mr. Lang, Mr. Alvarez, Mr. Stepanov, and Mr. Jefferson?”

“Scott and I are… Well, we’re partners. And we’re dating.”

“What do you mean by partners?”

“We work together. Odd jobs.”

“I see, like what?”

“Anything, really. You think of it, we’ve done it.”

“Nude modelling?”

“Once or twice.”

“Do you have any documentation of these jobs?”

“Not on us at the moment, sorry.”

“No further questions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t forget to comment!!


	31. The Trial: Part Six

“Scott Lang, approach the bench.”

Hope squeezed his hand as he stood and made his way up. He gave the oath, albeit mentally crossing his fingers, and then took his place on the witness seat.

“I feel like I’m on one of those Hot Seat shows,” he muttered.

Jennifer approached him. “Mr. Lang.”

“Miss Walters.”

“Please take this seriously, sir.”

“I am, ma’am.”

“How do you know Miss Rae and her daughter Cassandra.”

“I know Maggie from college. We dated for a few weeks, she attended my sister’s wedding with me, and she’s the mother of my kid,” Scott replied coolly. “I know Cassie through Maggie. I um… I left Maggie without warning before either of us knew she was pregnant. I moved to New Jersey about a month after that. We met again in Florida at a restaurant we coincidentally were both having dinner at with two different parties. Cassie was with her but I didn't know that until later when we were talking alone. I finally met Cass the next day at Universal Studios. Maggie agreed to let me meet her so long as I didn’t tell Cassie I was her dad.” He quickly sat up. “You put our park passes into evidence to show proof we have an alibi for that day. And the restaurant receipt for the evening before.”

“Thank you for noting that,” Jennifer said. “You said that Miss Rae refused to let you tell Cassandra that you are her father, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But earlier, during the latter’s testimony, she referred to you as her father several times. How did she find out?”

“She and Maggie were staying with us the same night after the trip to the parks. Maggie and her fiancé got into an argument over something—she wouldn’t tell me, just that they couldn’t be around each other then—and we offered to let them stay with us for the night. They were going back to their Miami hotel the next day and the house we were in was right in the middle point between Orlando and Miami. Anyway, Hope and I picked them up and drove them back to our—sorry, her  _ mom’s— _ place. Right before we were going to have dinner, Maggie asked if she and I could talk. We went to one of the guest rooms and she started arguing with me about Cassie and how I wasn’t ‘being subtle’ or some shi—  _ crap… _ And we didn’t notice but Cass had come to get us so we could eat before the pizzas got cold and…”

He sighed and shook his head. 

“She overheard us.” 

Jennifer smiled slightly. “You seem relieved with the fact that she knows. Why?”

“I hate lying to kids. You have that– that heavy weight of guilt for giving them false hope. It’s so much easier to lie to adults. You don’t feel that guilt and it’s more believable.”

“Mr. Lang, your father and sister both testified and said that you disappeared after high school, only to reappear for the wedding and then disappear again. What happened?”

“I um… I went to college. Met Maggie, got my masters in electrical engineering,  _ apparently _ got Mags knocked up. I ran into financial trouble and tried to fix that. That’s why I ‘disappeared’ the second time.” He put air quotes around ‘disappeared’ with his fingers. 

“I never meant to scare or hurt anyone. I was just trying to get financially stable again. Around two years after leaving college—and Maggie—I started gambling. Before you ask, no. The odds were  _ not _ in my favour. I  _ sucked _ at it.  _ Royally _ sucked. Anyway, I stopped gambling after I was pretty much betting off my clothes and pocket lint. Started trying out odd jobs and shit. Met Hope…” 

He smiled softly. “Anything else?”

“That’ll be all, Mr. Lang. No further questions.”

“The gas station attendant in Oklahoma,” Ross started as he stood, “ID’d you as one of the men who stopped in. He also identified your friend Mr. Alvarez over there!”

“We did stop in, yes. For gas and snacks. We were on a road trip.” Scott leaned forward and folded his hands on the wooden thing separating himself from the lawyer. “My girlfriend and I were on the news as suspects in a string of crimes. Of course he was going to recognise me. Luis, however. I don’t see why he would’ve been a suspect. He’s been with us the whole time, since before we left San Francisco.”

“He was an ID'd suspect in the robbery of Mr. Samuel Wilson on the 14th of March!”

“He couldn’t be! You must have the wrong guy! He was with us all day!”

“Do not yell at me, Mr. Lang.”

“You yelled at me first, asshat!”

“Mr. Lang,” Jennifer interjected. “Calm down.”

Scott looked from his lawyer to Ross to Luis.

This was going to be so much harder than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t forget to comment or i’ll steal your kneecaps and feed them to my wolves


	32. The Trial: Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> britney, tasha... i’m sorry. please forgive me.

“Mr. Alvarez,” Ross said. “Do you understand  _ why _ you’re on trial?”

“Uh… Oh! Yeah, yeah yeah.” Luis nodded his head quickly. “I was caught in a stolen vehicle with my friends and some guy claimed I helped someone else rob him! Did I get that right?”

“Yes, that’s very much correct.” Ross walked back over to his table and picked up a file. 

“According to this, you already have a criminal record, Mr. Alvarez.”

“All I did was steal some smoothie machines. I even got released from prison early because I used good behaviour!”

“Mr. Alvarez, how did you come to be friends with Mr. Lang and Miss van Dyne?”

“Oh, it’s kind of a funny story,” the man on the stand started. “You see, my buddies Kurt and Dave and I had all just been released from prison and moved in together. We were trying to find some jobs and even put ourselves on Craigslist. Then one day, I was making waffles in the kitchen for breakfast when Dave came in, and he was all like, ‘Bro! You gotta check your email!’ And I was like, ‘Why, bro? I’m making us a healthy breakfast! You and Kurt have gotta stop going out to eat when a perfectly good chef is living with you.’ And he was all like, ‘Kurt and I just got emails from two people claiming to be world-famous con artists the Ant and the Wasp! They wanna hire us as their tech person, getaway driver, and their own personal chef!’”

Scott dropped his head onto the tabletop. Hope groaned and slumped in her seat. 

“We didn’t accept the offer at first, you know? We didn’t want to agree to anything until we learned how much we were being paid. We got an email back a few minutes later. They said we’d be paid $800 each per con we help them with. We agreed to that, and then we realised, ‘Bro. We don’t even know if they’re legit! We gotta meet up somewhere to find out!’ So we emailed them that and they got back to us with an address. We went there and it was so cool! They robbed us and everything! They gave us our stuff back though, and showed us how to hack into stuff and they even let us in on the planning for their next con—it’s not called a heist, by the way; they explained that to us. I also got to have a part in it!” 

He winced, realising what he just said. “Ooh…”

“Luis!” Kurt shouted. 

“Come on, man!” Dave also yelled.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Luis said. “Scotty, please don’t fire me.”

The whole courtroom erupted into angry and shocked yells and exclamations. 

“Luis!” Scott shouted over the noise. “None of us will even have jobs after this!”

***

The rest of the trial flew by in an angry blur. They lost the case because there was too much evidence against them, Luis’s testimony, and the fact Scott and Hope both lied on the stand. And the fact that everyone hated their guts didn’t help at all. 

As they were being led out of the courtroom and to their cells, Cassie cried out for her father. 

“Daddy!” she screamed.  _ “Daddy!” _

He couldn’t turn around. They wouldn’t let him. 

Jennifer and the other lawyers tried to get permission to talk to them. She was mostly just upset she finally lost a case. She was pissed, anyone could see that. She looked like she was ready to beat up anyone and everyone. 

“Let me speak to my client,” she kept saying. “Let me speak to Scott.”

They wouldn’t let her. 

“Scott– Scott!” Jennifer yelled as they shoved the man through the door. “I’ll try to get time with you!” 

The man didn’t say anything. The door closed behind him. 

The red-headed woman that had been there every day of the trial approached the little brown-haired girl waiting for her mom and almost-stepfather. 

“You must be Cassie,” the woman said. “I’m Natasha.”

The girl looked up at her. “You work with Paxton,” she noted. 

“Yes, I do.”

“What do you want?”

“I need your help with something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT!


	33. The Girl and the Women

Weeks passed. Natasha had been with Paxton and Maggie and Cassie a lot more, claiming she was there to help out during this strange time. Especially with Cassie.

Maggie felt strange with the woman being around so much, especially when she snuck off with her daughter. Paxton assured her that Natasha’s intentions were well and she just wanted to help them out, give Cassie a distraction. 

But it wasn’t true.

In Cassie’s room, she and Natasha were seated on her bed. 

“Okay, Cassie,” the woman said. “We need a plan. What do you have?”

“Daddy and Miss Hope wore disguises,” the little girl said. “You’re a cop, you don’t need one. You just need your badge. I need a disguise…” 

“Wanna play dress up to find something?” Natasha asked. 

“Yeah!” Cassie beamed. She jumped up and ran to her closet. 

Natasha watched her, smiling slightly. 

Her phone buzzed in her black leather jacket pocket and she pulled it out. A lone text appeared on the screen. 

**Ghost: You’re sure about this? She’s just a kid.**

Natasha rolled her eyes and texted back. 

**Black Widow: She wants to help her dad out. I say we let her.**

Cassie emerged from the closet with a dress and a messy wig on. 

“Hm?” she asked. 

Natasha looked up and the corner of her mouth quirked up. “Okay, I think we need to go shopping,” she said. “Come on, I’ll go ask your mom and Jim.”

“Okay!” Cassie hurried off to change back into her other clothes.

Natasha waited for her. Once she returned from the closet, the woman took her hand and they headed back downstairs. 

“James, Maggie,” the redhead said. “Is it okay if I take Cassie out and we do some shopping? Don’t worry about it, I’ll pay for anything she wants.”

“Are you sure?” Maggie asked, looking away from Paxton. They had been talking quietly; about Scott, about Cassie, about what to expect in the future. 

“I’m positive,” Natasha replied. “It’s no trouble at all.”

“Have her back before eight,” Paxton told her. “She has to sleep. She’s not like you.”

“Okay,  _ sir.” _ The woman said ‘sir’ in an exaggerated tone.

***

“So, little miss.” The woman’s hands were stuffed into her pockets. “How long have you known your dad?”

“Only a month or two,” the child replied. She looked up at the redhead. “Where are you from? You have an accent.”

“Russia,” was all the woman replied with. 

They came to the costume store. The woman opened the door and motioned for the girl to enter. 

Not long later, Cassie was trying on wig after wig and dress after dress. Natasha had made a beeline for the makeup and was checking every ingredient and warning label. Soon she had a basketful and made her way over to find Cassie. 

“Little Miss, where are you?” she called out. She eventually found her looking over a long blonde wig. She had a ginger one styled into curls and a short black one with bangs that came to form a Widow’s Peak beside her on the floor.

“Find everything you need, Маленькая мисс Лэнг?” 

Cassie looked up at her and nodded. “Yeah. Except some clothes.”

“Well then, looks like we’ll have to make another stop.”

They paid for their items and left. Natasha took Cassie to another store—a clothing store. 

“Go find what you like and I’ll come look when I’m done over here,” the woman said. Cassie hurried off. 

Natasha sighed and wandered off to the adult sized clothing section. She took her phone out and dialled a number. 

_ “Yes?” _ a voice said when the call was answered. 

“Hey, it’s me.” Natasha sighed. “We’re finishing up here.”

_ “Great! You want me to come pick you two up?” _

“Yeah. Be here in twenty minutes.”

_ “Copy that. See you then, Nat.” _

“Miss Natasha! Come look what I found!” Cassie called across the almost-empty store. 

“I’ll see you soon,” Natasha said into the phone, then she hung up. She grabbed a red leather jacket and a black top that had tiny hourglasses around the neck made out of red rhinestones. As she made her way to Cassie, she grabbed a pair of red suede wedge ankle boots off a shelf. 

“What did you find?” she asked as she approached the girl. 

“These!” Cassie held out her armful of clothes. 

“Go try them on. Make sure they fit.”

Cassie looked around for a changing room and spotted one a few sections over. 

Nat followed her over and waited outside of the stall for the girl to finish trying everything on. After putting some items back and getting replacements in just the right size (and looking at and choosing a few accessories for Natasha [Cassie insisted]) the pair checked out and waited outside for a blue van to pull up. 

A few minutes later, it did. A darker skinned girl with long dark brown—almost black—hair leaned over and opened the passenger door while pushing the button to open the side door.

Natasha helped Cassie into the back and made sure she buckled up, then she got in the front passenger seat. 

“Ready, ladies?” the woman in the driver’s seat asked, English accent thick. 

Natasha looked to Cassie, who nodded. Then she looked to the other woman, “Yes we are, Ava. Yes we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is nearing its end. i can’t believe it. don’t forget to leave a comment! theories and criticism are welcome!


	34. The Great Escape

“Mr. Lang.”

Scott looked up from the book he was reading. There was an officer outside the cell. He sat up. 

“You have a visitor,” the woman outside informed. 

Scott didn’t ask any questions. He just stood and let her cuff him and lead him out. He didn’t look at anyone in any of the other cells as he passed them by. He only reached up once to scratch at the scruff of a beard that was starting to grow on his face. 

He was shoved into a room and the door shut behind him. Sitting at a table were two women: One with blonde hair, once with black and silver-streaked hair. He knew those were wigs. It’s what they had planned on. 

The blonde stood. “Scott!” she said, just a touch of an accent. 

“You look well, Scott,” the streaked woman said, English accent obvious. 

“Rachael, Destiny,” Scott smirked as he approached. “Good to see you.”

He sat down across from them, cuffed hands on the table top. 

“Cassie’s in the van,” the blonde whispered, accent now thick. Russian. 

“Paxton and Maggie haven’t found out about this yet, right?” Scott whispered back. 

Both women shook their heads. 

“We just have to get Hope and the guys out. We have an idea on how to do that.” The streak-haired woman smirked. 

“What?” Scott raised an eyebrow. 

“Under the table. Make sure nobody’s looking.”

Scott lowered his hands under the table and felt a lumpy, folded bag being shoved into his hands. He quickly glanced around before tucking the bag under his shirt and into his waistband. 

“What about the cuffs?” he whispered. 

The blonde tapped the table and Scott glanced down. She had a bobby pin between her hands on the tabletop. 

She slid it fast toward him, and he caught it under his palm. 

“We’ll see you next time, Scott,” the woman with streaks said. “We’ll be sure to tell Hope you miss her.”

“Thanks, Destiny,” Scott replied, standing up. He called for an officer and he was led back to his cell, bobby pin clenched in his hand. 

Once the officer had removed his cuffs and was gone and he was back in his cell, he set to work. He removed the bag from his pants and quickly changed his clothes and applied more to the disguise. The women had gotten him a uniform to match that of the officers in the prison and makeup to liven his eyes more and sink in his cheekbones. There was also a slightly-longer brown wig. He used the pin to unlock the cell and escaped down the hall. He checked to make sure his badge was straight; he trusted that they’d hacked the system and added him in. 

He peeked around the corner and spotted some officers. He took a pair of glasses from the pocket of the uniform and put them on. He made his way down the hall. He nodded to some of the officers he passed. He reached Luis’s cell. 

“Luis,” he said through the bars. “You’re needed in the interview room.”

The lock was jimmied with the bobby pin. Once the cell door was open, the men headed out. 

“The girls are getting Hope, Kurt, and Dave out,” Scott whispered to Luis as he shoved him through the door to the interview room. 

They stayed there for a moment until the cameras visibly shut down. Scott pulled a single makeup wipe pack from his pocket and opened it, pulling the wipe out. He pulled the wig from his head and wiped the makeup off at the same time. 

Luis had to break the window, it wouldn’t budge when he tried to open it. Luckily, they were on the first floor. He pushed broken glass out of the way with his sleeve and then climbed out. Scott followed behind, stuffing the wig down the front of his shirt. 

Just then, the door to the room burst open and cops flooded on. Scott gave them the finger before running off after Luis. A blue van pulled up and the back door opened. There was a group of people in the back. Luis and his companion jumped in and the vehicle took off, the door closing.

***

They were untraceable. They managed to avoid traffic cams and other cameras. They switched vehicles whenever they had the chance. They got Scott and Hope’s money back, too. Every bit of cash they’d stolen. 

Ava peered out the windshield and smiled. “We’re here, guys,” she said. 

Everyone crowded at the windows. A house came into view as they pulled up the long, gravel driveway. 

“It’s bought out under the alias Calliope Anderson,” Natasha informed. “The landlord knows it’ll be multiple people living here, and he didn’t ask any questions.”

“What about the news?” Scott asked. 

“He said he’ll cover for us all,” Ava smirked. “He’s a friend.” 

“Who?”

“He’s not really a landlord but he owns this place and is willing to let us stay,” Natasha explained. 

“Yeah. Because of his bigass crush on Scott.” Ava snorted and started laughing. 

The car came to a stop in front of the house. Ava got out, Natasha soon after. The others looked at each other before getting out as well. 

“Welcome new owners!” 

The group looked to the front door where none other than Agent Jimmy Woo was exiting onto the shaded porch. 

“Woo?” Scott raised an eyebrow. 

“Hey, Scotty,” the agent replied. 

“What are you–”

“Welcome to your new home.”

“You’re letting us– You’re not gonna–”

“I realised you’re maybe not as bad as you seem, and your kid insisted you were different.” The Korean man made his way down the front steps and came to a stop in front of him. “Plus, maybe I like you?”

“You  _ do _ know Hope and I are a thing, right?”

Jimmy sighed and nodded. “Yes, I know.” He shrugged then. “Doesn’t mean I can’t act on it and be nice to you.” 

“I guess that’s true,” Scott smiled. 

“I have to go,” Woo said after a moment. “I’m expecting a call that you five got out. I’ll cover for you. Enjoy your stay.”

The group watched him leave. 

After another long moment, Natasha spoke up. “We got your things from Miami. That’s why it took us so long, I’m sorry.”

“We may also need to buy you more stuff,” Ava added. “Some bleach accidentally spilled on a pile while we were trying to sneak around Hank and Janet.”

“How are they?” Hope asked. 

“They’re doing fine,” Ava said. “They’re living in the Miami house.”

“Let’s go in,” Natasha insisted. “You must be hungry.”

“And tired,” Kurt yawned.

“You can choose your rooms once we get inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just one more chapter. ;)


	35. A Legacy: Epilogue

Seven years passed. Two sets of neighbours had moved in. None of them had seen or remembered the news reports of escaped prisoners who were con artists or the missing eight year old girl who was the daughter of one of the escapees. None of them questioned why an FBI agent stopped by most weekends. None of them questioned why so many people lived in the house or why there was one kid.

Cassie had been homeschooled since they moved in. She loved and preferred living with her father and his friends. 

About three years after moving in, Scott and Hope finally stopped putting it off and “talking about it” and settled down, stopped their life’s job, and got married. It had been a small ceremony in the backyard. Scott took Hope’s last name (“It sounds more badass than Lang,” he had joked, but everyone knew the real reason: He wanted her to keep the part of her mom she still had after everything that had happened). Cassie had been the ring bearer and flower girl. 

Luis happily cooks everyday. Kurt and Dave do their own thing. 

Kurt and Dave and Ava and Natasha have jobs. They use aliases. Kurt and Dave are security supervisors. Ava is working as a nurse for sick kids. Natasha is a ballet instructor. 

One morning, though, recently in those seven years, Hope woke up in her and Scott’s bed feeling sick. She sat up quickly and ran to the bathroom to throw up. Scott woke up due to her jostling the mattress while getting up. He groaned and trudged after her. He held her hair back as she emptied her stomach into the toilet bowl. He rubbed her back gently. Once she was sure she was done, she sat back, leaning against the wall. Scott flushed the toilet for her then got a washcloth from under the sink and wetted it. He handed it to her and asked, “You okay?”

Hope nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He gave her a weird look. “You never get sick. It’s like, against the Hope van Dyne code of conduct to get sick.”

She flashed a small smile at him and shook her head. “It’s fine— Wait.” Her eyes widened. 

“What?” Scott’s eyes widened too. 

Hope scooted over to the sink and opened the cabinet underneath and started moving stuff around. Ava had bought some as a joke, but maybe they’d come in handy after all…

“Aha!” Hope pulled a pink box from one of the two shelves and turned to Scott. 

“You think–”

“Maybe.”

“Well test it!”

A few moments later, the couple was waiting. Finally, the results were in. 

Hope quickly snatched up the test and checked the box for the result indications. Her eyes stung suddenly. 

“Hope?” Scott asked, worried. 

She handed the stick over. He took it and looked it over. 

“What is it?” 

She smiled and said to him, “It’s positive, Scott.”

“It’s positive? We’re–”

Hope nodded. “We’re having a baby.”

“We’re having a baby!” Scott exclaimed. He pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her all over. 

***

Luis screamed and held onto the safety handle on the roof of the minivan, eyes closed tight. “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” he cried over and over. 

Scott and Hope stepped outside just as the minivan slammed to a stop. Cassie turned to him and grinned. “How’d I do?” the fifteen year old asked. 

“Hey, Cass!” Hope called to her, hand already instinctively on her stomach. “Why don’t you give Uncle Luis a break?”

“Please!” Luis sobbed. 

“Fine,” Cassie pouted and got out of the car. Cassie noticed Hope’s odd stature and quirked an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m great,” the woman smiled. 

Scott glanced over and smiled, too. He placed a hand on her back. 

“What’s going on?” Cassie asked. 

“We have some news,” Scott told her. “But we have to wait for everyone else to get home.”

“Okay…?”

***

“Everyone,” Scott said. “We have some news.”

They were having a “family meeting” in the living room that night once everyone was home. 

“What’s up, Scott?” Natasha asked. 

Hope pulled the pregnancy test from her back pocket and held it up. “We’re pregnant.”

Everyone erupted into congratulations and excited chatter. Cassie ran over and hugged her dad and stepmother. 

“I’m gonna be a sister?” she asked, more confirming it for herself than actually wanting the answer restated. 

“You’re gonna be a sister,” Scott confirmed. 

“How long have you known?” Ava asked eagerly. 

“Since this morning. Cassie’s been bugging us to tell her  _ all day,” _ Hope chuckled.

Everyone started talking again, Dave silently turning on the TV and muting the sound. It was just for the background. 

On the news was a headline:  _ Stature and Ghost strike again. Con artist duo robs San Francisco couple Margaret and James Paxton. _ A picture of a ghost and rabbit sticker was on the screen. A red ‘S’ had been drawn onto the side of the rabbit. 

Maybe Cassie really was like her father? She’ll make sure she’s the best damn big sister, though. 

Scott glanced at the TV and saw the headline and looked at his daughter. “That you?” he asked. 

She nodded. 

“Good job,” he nudged her shoulder. 

“Who wants dinner?” Luis asked loudly. 

“Me,” Hope groaned. “I’m going to be eating for two.”

Everyone laughed at that as she sat down on a recliner. 

Seven years the couple has been retired from their illegal ways. Two years the teenager has been living as their legacy. 

Be careful who you meet online. 

Be careful who you meet in person. 

Look out for tells and signs. 

You may end up the victim of a con. 

Yours truly,

-🐜🐝🦡🦡🦡🕷👻🐇

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the story. First, I’d like to thank everyone for reading this. Second, I’d like to give a very special thanks to Tasha and Britney for sticking with this, especially when I took a while to update that one time.  
> Third, thank you to my gc for proof reading certain bits and pieces of this fic. And finally, Fourth, read my other stuff if you would please.  
> Wait, sorry, lastly. Fifth, tell me what songs you listened to or thought of as you read this. I want to make a playlist for it and I would LOVE reader input.  
> Again, thanks so much for reading. Don’t forget to comment.


	36. Author’s Note: Book

Hi there! I decided to turn this into an actual novel. If you would, please, order yourself a copy.   
If it gains enough attention, it could possibly get turned into a movie. Wouldn’t that be cool?  
Here’s the link: https://t.co/AiwMlF6Hdp


End file.
